UEFA Champions League Oct 3 wrap

Apart from Liverpool's lackluster match against Marseille, the rest of the fixtures for groups A,B,C and D played out as follows...

Real Madrid and Lazio battled their way to equal points and a 2-2 draw. A brace from Van Nistelrooy took the prolific striker to 56 champions league goals but Pandev had a brace of his own for Madrid. The defensive ability of the great club was brought into question yet again as they were left exposed on various occasions. They were lucky to take any points away from this trip to Italy.

AC Milan traveled to meet Celtic in Glasgow and weren't up to the task of defeating the "hoops" at home. The club with few wins in serie A of late can't even turn to their usually good performances in Europe at the moment as Celtic took all points with a 2-1 win. McManus headed in from a corner to make the score 1-0 and Milan leveled after Kaka' put away a penalty awarded for a foul on Ambrosini. Celtic made it 2-1 at the death after another Dida blunder that allowed the Aussie striker, McDonald, to slot away the rebound.

Olympiacos beat Werder Bremen, 3-1 after an amazing second-half come back to leave the German hosts with a sour taste in their mouths. Almeida was able to put away at least one of his many chances during the night to put Bremen in the lead, 1-0 but it wasn't to last as Olympiacos came back to put 3 goals away in the second half. An amazing second goal from Patsatzoglu found the back of the net with a little help from a deflection.

Schalke defeated Rosenburg 2-0 with goals from Jones and Kuranyi making a successful roadtrip. Shakhtar were also able to upset their hosts, beating Benfica 1-0 in Lisbon. Continuing the tradition of wins on the road, this time it was Benfica's league rivals, Porto, that were able to take 3 points from Besiktas in Turkey. The brilliant Quaresma waited until the 92nd minute to put the only goal of the match away.

Finally it was Chelsea that were also able to defeat their Spanish hosts proving that they're not in crisis just yet after Mourinho's departure. But it was David Villa that opened the scoring for the home side with a bit of luck allowing the ball to fall in a good position for him. Drogba combined well with Malouda, allowing the later to play the ball across the 6-yard line for Joe Cole to tap in and level the scores. Finally Drogba calmly placed a shot towards the far post and allowed Chelsea to go home 2-1 winners over Valencia.


[Video length: 4m11s]

Milan's new duck

It seems that Milan have finally got their Duck. The duck I mean is Alexandre Pato from Inter (Inter of Brazil). Pato means Duck in Portuguese and Alexandre was given this nickname as he is from a place near Pato Branco (white duck) in Brazil. It's funny that he played for a team named after Inter Milan but ended up with AC Milan, oh well, all the best to him! He has many Brazilians there to help him accustom.

He's probably got a little coverage over the last year as he was involved in Inter's Intercontinental Cup. They defeated Barcelona in the competition that used to be the Toyota Cup that puts the Champions League winners up against the Copa Libertadores winner. Brazil has had a good run over the last couple years actually (Sao Paulo defeating Liverpool the year before).

Alexandre definitely has much potential and AC Milan can probably thank Leonardo for bagging them another Brazilian talent (who almost signed up Kaka' from Sao Paulo some time ago). In my opinion, I think they'll probably loan him so he can get some European experience before they start using him but he could already make an impact for them. Problem is he can't start playing for them until January 2008 anyways, after paying out a fair bit for his buy-out clause they must be betting on him for the future. He definitely will be one to watch out for very soon! Check out his current abilities below...



Bookmarkz