Sports
UCL: Chelsea Flies English Flag Into 1/4 Finals
Chelsea became the first English side to reach the Champions League last eight after beating a limp Galatasaray.
Having drawn 1-1 in the first leg, former Blues striker Didier Drogba could not inspire the Turkish team, who fell behind early on when Samuel Eto’o fired past Fernando Muslera.
Gary Cahill made it 3-1 on aggregate when he thumped home after John Terry’s header was saved.
And Galatasaray’s night was summed up by Drogba’s stoppage-time miss.
After Arsenal and Manchester City were knocked out last week Chelsea won this game at a canter.
The result means that Galatasaray boss Roberto Mancini has yet to beat Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho in six European attempts.
Also Galatasaray is yet to beat English opposition in Europe in eight attempts
Unlike the first leg, where the visitors recovered from a poor start in Istanbul, Galatasaray did not look like troubling the Premier League leaders, who responded well to Saturday’s surprise defeat by Aston Villa.
Mourinho, who is aiming to win a third Champions League trophy with a different team, said in the build-up to the game that Drogba was still one of the world’s best strikers.
But there was to be no fairytale return to Stamford Bridge for the Ivorian striker. Eto’o, whose age was recently doubted by Mourinho, took centre stage.
The Cameroon forward, three years younger than the 36-year-old Drogba, looked sharp from the start and he put Chelsea ahead after four minutes with his 30th Champions League goal when he latched on to Oscar’s diagonal pass to beat Uruguayan international Muslera.
Chelsea showed far more impetus in the first half with Frank Lampard and Willian wasting good chances after excellent build-up play from Eden Hazard and Oscar.
Felipe Melo’s tame shot was Galatasaray’s only real effort towards Petr Cech’s goal. Drogba’s free-kick ended up in the top tier of the Chelsea stand and they did not muster a shot on target all game.
Added to their lifelessness in attack the visitors showed little desire to mark Terry at set-pieces and after the Chelsea captain volleyed over from a free-kick, he was free to head goalwards from a corner, with Cahill smashing home the rebound from close range.
Prior to this encounter, Galatasaray had failed to beat English opposition in eight attempts and once they had gone two goals behind they rarely looked like changing the game’s course.
With Hazard again the creative force, Oscar, Willian and Lampard all had chances to extend the lead after the break.
Hazard also drew a late save from Muslera, who is likely to face England in the group stage of the 2014 World Cup.
But despite Mancini’s best attempts to give his team a boost with three second-half substitutions, they could not make an impression and Chelsea set themselves up perfectly for Saturday’s game against Arsenal with a comfortable victory.
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor