CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Atletico Madrid, Liverpool and Inter Milan reached into the Champions League second round on Wednesday night, while 10-man Chelsea and minnows Anorthosis Famagusta must wait and see.
Steven Gerrard’s goal shot Liverpool through in a 1-0 home victory over Marseille, Atletico beat PSV Eindhoven 2-1, while Inter Milan still went through after losing at home to complete 13-pieces of the 16-team knockout stage jigsaw.
PHOTO: AFP
Anorthosis must be kicking themselves after throwing away a 2-0 lead at home to Werder Bremen, drawing 2-2, and Panathinaikos shocked Inter Milan 1-0 in Italy in Group B.
Group A is wide open after Chelsea drew 1-1 at Bordeaux with Nicolas Anelka on the scoresheet and Frank Lampard suspended for their final match at home to Romanians Cluj after a second yellow card.
Roma won 3-1 at Cluj, and will host Bordeaux in their final match.
Barcelona topped Group C with a 5-2 victory at Sporting Lisbon as Spain got a Grand Slam of all four clubs — Real Madrid and Villarreal are the others — through to the next phase.
Atletico fans had to celebrate goals from Simao and Maxi Rodriguez outside their Vicente Calderon stadium after UEFA punished the club for disturbances and reported racist remarks by its fans during the group match against Marseille on Oct. 1.
As for Anorthosis Famagusta, they threw away vital points as they let slip a two-goal lead at home to eliminated Werder Bremen to leave their hopes of further progress hanging by a thread.
A Diego penalty and Hugo Almeida’s last-gasp volley canceled out goals from Nikos Nikolaou and Savio and Temuri Ketsbaia’s surprise package now need a result in Athens against Panathiniakos to reach the knockout phase. Rank outsiders Anorthosis slid down to third place on six points — one behind the Greeks, who bagged their win at the San Siro courtesy of Josu Sarriegi’s second-half strike.
“We are disappointed because we led 2-0 but couldn’t hold on. We made mistakes and at this level you get punished for mistakes,” Anorthosis manager Temuri Ketsbaia said.
Anorthosis can only dream of enjoying the multimillion budget of English big-spenders Chelsea — but Luis Felipe Scolari’s men are in the same boat with one match to go after they also let slip a lead to push qualification down to the wire and the last match.
Nicolas Anelka’s cool finish on the hour looked set to claim full points but Alou Diarra headed the equalizer seven minutes from time and then Chelsea had England star Frank Lampard sent off for a second yellow card in the closing stages.
Manager Luiz Felipe Scolari was annoyed for the first goal conceded under his reign from a corner.
“If you look at the first 45 minutes and the final result, it is normal but I am not satisfied that they scored from a corner which is the first one since I’m the coach,” Scolari grumbled.
“If we can’t beat Cluj at home, I might as well go back to Brazil,” the 60-year-old Brazilian said.
In the other Anglo-French contest, Gerrard’s first half header from Xabi Alonso’s cross saw off Marseille — but the French club now face potential disciplinary action from UEFA after missiles were thrown in the England midfielder’s direction from the away end.
Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez praised Gerrard’s cool handling of the situation.
“Steven was very professional. It is something that the UEFA delegate will take note of,” said Benitez, who took charge of his 66th European match to eclipse Bill Shankly’s record while a 39th victory on the European stage saw him draw level with Bob Paisley on that count.
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