UEFA CUP
AC Milan eased past FC Zurich into the UEFA Cup group stage on Thursday along with two-time champion Tottenham, who squeezed past Wisla Krakow.
Borussia Dortmund, the 1997 Champions League winners, were eliminated by Udinese 4-3 on penalty kicks, but Hamburg, Stuttgart, Schalke and Wolfsburg will form a strong German representation.
Four Spanish teams — Sevilla, league, Valencia, Real Santander and Deportivo La Coruna — also marched into the next phase.
England and Italy will each have three teams among the 40 in Tuesday’s draw.
Andriy Shevchenko scored his first goal since returning to Milan to secure the seven-time European Cup champion’s passage 4-1 on aggregate. Serie A rival Sampdoria also advanced.
Tottenham eased the pressure on under-fire manager Juande Ramos by completing a 3-1 aggregate win with a 1-1 draw at Wisla and will join Manchester City in the next phase after the newly enriched Premier League club repeated their 2-1 first-leg victory over Omonia Nicosia.
Aston Villa were held 1-1 by Litex Lovech, but were carried through 4-2 on aggregate. Standard Liege defeated Everton 2-1 to take the two-leg series 4-3.
Stuttgart drew 2-2 with Cherno More Varna, but progressed 4-3 past the Bulgarians; Schalke had a comfortable 4-1 first-leg advantage over Apoel Nicosia and played out a 1-1 draw; Wolfsburg drew 1-1 with Rapid Bucharest to oust the Romanians 2-1 on aggregate; and after a scoreless first leg Hamburg overcame Unirea Valahorum Urziceni 2-0 in Romania.
Benfica turned around a 3-2 first-leg loss to beat Napoli 2-0, with goals from Jose Antonio Reyes and Nuno Gomes.
Milan didn’t need to exert themselves to defend a 3-1 lead from the first leg at the San Siro two weeks ago.
OFFSIDE TRAP
The goal arrived when Shevchenko timed his run to beat the offside trap and collect a pass before slipping his shot from 12m under Zurich goalkeeper Johnny Leoni.
Tottenham’s progression was secured by Arkadiusz Glowacki’s own-goal in the 58th minute.
The visitors had come under sustained pressure from Wisla, but menaced after the break with Fraizer Campbell firing over from distance on his first start, before playing a crucial role in Tottenham’s goal.
As Gareth Bale swung in a low cross from the left, Campbell was almost clinging to defender Glowacki, forcing the Wisla captain to clip the ball inside the far post.
As the Poles went in search of an equalizer, Gomes rescued Spurs by tipping over from Piotr Brozek in 80th but was beaten by his twin brother three minutes later. Pawel Brozek lobbed the onrushing Brazil goalkeeper, who made amends in the 87th by repelling the striker’s header while on his knees.
Udinese defender Aleksandar Lukovic converted the decisive spot kick after the Italians’ goalkeeper Samir Handanovic blocked shots from Tamas Hajnal and Jakub Blaszczykowski in the shootout.
Hajnal scored at the end of each half as Dortmund evened the aggregate following Udinese’s 2-0 win in the first leg.
Asier del Horno and David Villa scored second-half goals as Valencia rallied for a 2-1 victory over CS Maritimo, who trailed 1-0 going into the second leg.
Elano and Shaun Wright-Phillips scored within the first ten minutes of the second half to clinch Man City’s victory over their Cypriot opponents.
The Premier League club endured an anxious final 12 minutes after Oladimeji Rasheed Alabi exploited poor defending to pull one back for Omonia.
INITIATIVE
Despite the away-goal advantage following a 2-2 draw in England, Standard Liege took the initiative against Everton and teenager Axel Witsel slid the ball in from a tight angle in the 22nd minute.
Everton equalized when goalkeeper Espinoza fumbled a corner and Phil Jagielka pounced to jab the ball home in the 67th.
Eleven minutes later, Serbian forward Jovanovic ran through the Everton defense and was brought down in the penalty area. He stepped up to convert the penalty himself.
Four-time European champions Ajax breezed past Borac 2-0 to advance 6-1 on aggregate.
While Sampdoria rallied to beat Kaunas 2-1, the Italians’ passage was never in doubt thanks to a 5-0 victory two weeks ago.
Two-time winners Feyenoord went through on away goals, recovering from a 1-0 first-leg deficit to beat Kalmar 2-1.
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
Bayern Munich on Sunday were crowned German champions for the 34th time, giving striker Harry Kane his first major trophy, after second-placed Bayer 04 Leverkusen drew 2-2 at SC Freiburg. Bayern’s 3-3 draw at RB Leipzig on Saturday, when the Bavarians came from two goals down to take the lead before conceding a stoppage-time equalizer, meant defending Bundesliga champions Leverkusen needed to win at Freiburg to delay the title party. Leverkusen were two goals down before scoring twice in the final 10 minutes, but Xabi Alonso’s side could not find a third, as Bayern reclaimed the title at the first attempt after
A man fell from the 6.4m-high Clemente Wall in right field at PNC Park in Pittsburgh during Wednesday night’s game between the Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. Right after Andrew McCutchen hit a two-run double in the seventh inning to put the Pirates ahead 4-3, players began waving frantically for medical personnel and pointing to the man, who had fallen onto the warning track. The fan was tended to for approximately five minutes by members of both the Pirates and Cubs training staffs as well as PNC personnel before being removed from the field on a cart. The team issued a statement shortly
PAINFUL VICTORY: Ruud said that felt pain in his rib during the warmup and was put on painkillers so that he could finish the match against Argentine Francisco Cerundolo With the help of painkillers, Casper Ruud overcame a rib ailment to defeat Francisco Cerundolo in straight sets and reach the Madrid Open final on Friday. Ruud is to face Jack Draper, who beat Lorenzo Musetti 6-3, 7-6 (4) in the other semi-final to make his third final of the year. Ruud received treatment on his rib three games into the match and went on to win 6-4, 7-5 on the Caja Magica center court. The 15th-ranked Norwegian saved 15 of the 18 break points he faced against the 21st-ranked Argentine. Ruud said he felt something in his rib during the warmup, just before
RSS