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German clubs draw first blood in Euro rivalry with English teams
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GERMAN teams scored a point — or more accurately, seven — in their rivalry with English clubs this week, coming out on top in two of their three UEFA Champions League duels, with the third resulting in a share of the spoils.
Bundesliga champion Bayern Munich certainly had the better of English champion Manchester City through out their clash, although it needed a 90th-minute goal from former City player Jerome Boateng to win that Group E opener 1-0.
For Boateng the goal provoked unbridled celebrations in Munich as he wheeled away and ran to the dugout where an ecstatic coach Pep Guardiola embraced him — a contrast to when the German World Cup-winning defender was sent off in a group match between the two sides last season.
“We had so many chances to score, but we wasted all of them until the last minute,” said Boateng.
Borussia Dortmund had a much easier job against Arsenal, easing to a 2-0 victory with a scintillating performance at home on Tuesday that left the Londoners dazed and Arsene Wenger heaping praise on German counterpart Juergen Klopp.
Even troubled Schalke 04, which has scraped together only a single point from its first three league games — and lost to third-tier Dynamo Dresden in a domestic Cup match — fought its way back at Chelsea on Wednesday, snatching a 1-1 draw through a Klaas-Jan Huntelaar equalizer.
That stalemate marked a big improvement on its two matches against Chelsea in the group stage last season, which Chelsea won 3-0 home and away. “We are proud with what we achieved here,” Schalke coach Jens Keller said, simply verbalizing what could be seen on the players’ faces.
Some respite
That draw not only gave coach Keller some respite, but also highlighted the distance German clubs have come in the past few seasons, a fact underlined most poignantly by the all-German Champions League final between Bayern and Dortmund at Wembley in 2013.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, Guardiola’s former club Barcelona eked out a 1-0 home win over resilient Cypriot side APOEL Nicosia with Gerard Pique getting the only goal in a match probably better remembered for legendary midfielder Xavi Hernandez equalling compatriot Raul’s Champions League all-time appearance record of 142.
The side likely to be its main rival to top Group F, Paris Saint-Germain, dropped points with a 1-1 draw away at Ajax.
PSG wasted a host of chances when it was 1-0 up — Edinson Cavani's 28th goal in his 50th appearance for the French champion giving it the lead — and paid the price when Danish international Lasse Schoene levelled with a delightful free-kick.
Two other games ended in draws — Athletic Bilbao's first game at this stage in 16 years saw it hold Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk 0-0 in Group H.
Former Manchester United winger Nani got on the scoresheet for Sporting Lisbon but Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho will have not seen anything to fear too much from his group rivals as Slovenian champion Maribor rallied to grab a 1-1 draw.
Both AS Roma and Porto bucked the trend of low-scoring games by thrashing CSKA Moscow and Belarus outfit BATE Borisov 5-1 and 6-0, respectively, with the Portuguese side’s Algerian winger Yacine Brahimi producing the scoring performance of the evening with a hat-trick.
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