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| November 23, 2001 | Friday | Ramazan 7, 1422 |
Spanish clubs dominate
PARIS, Nov 22: Spain’s armada of Champions League contenders sailed on serenely on Wednesday, with both Real Madrid and Deportivo La Coruna winning their opening second phase games.
Real Madrid had two goals from Fernando Morientes and a Zinedine Zidane strike to thank for earning them a precious 3-2 away win at Sparta Prague in Group C.
Deportivo, meanwhile, impressive in the first phase when they recorded two wins over Manchester United, claimed another English club’s scalp when they cruised to a 2-0 win over Arsenal in Group D.
Both Real and Deportivo went to the top of their groups after Wednesday’s play.
Real’s other Group C rivals Panathinaikos and FC Porto played out a goalless draw in Athens while in Group D, Juventus’ clash with Bayer Leverkusen was postponed after thick fog shrouded Turin.
With Barcelona superb in defeating Liverpool 3-1 at Anfield on Tuesday, Real and Deportivo added weight to the theory that Spain’s La Liga is the strongest in the world with two fine wins.
In Prague, eight-times champions Real, bidding for another triumph in their centenary season, look good for at least a place in the quarters of this season’s competition.
Mercurial Frenchman Zidane gave Real a 20th-minute lead with a left foot shot which took a slight deflection to arc high into the net past Czech keeper Petr Cech, who had first blocked a low effort from Morientes.
But Sparta equalised out of the blue on the half hour after a comedy of errors in the Real back line.
Morientes put Real back in front only for Libor Sionko to level with his second goal of the tournament on 72 minutes.
However just as the hosts appeared to be in the ascendancy Real produced the killer blow, a mere two minutes after being pegged back.
Brazilian wingback Roberto Carlos hared down the left and cut inside the area.
Keeper Cech blocked a low shot with his legs but Morientes was onto the loose ball in a flash for a true poacher’s goal.
“We had expected a really tough match,” said Zidane afterwards. “But we were very strong tonight. It’s a great start for us,” said Zidane, who is gradually finding his feet at Real after a slow start to his career in Spain.
At La Coruna, Deportivo inflicted Arsenal’s sixth successive away defeat in the Champions League with a convincing triumph in their Group D encounter.
Dutchman Roy Makaay and Spanish international Diego Tristan scored in the first-half to give Deportivo a perfect start to the second phase of the competition.
Makaay found the net after just nine minutes, with Arsenal’s defence in disarray, blasting the ball home from just inside the area after Arsenal’s Swedish international midfielder Fredrik Ljungberg had miscued a clearance of a Tristan pass and sent it straight to the Dutchman’s feet.
Tristan put the hosts two ahead after 25 minutes with a right foot shot struck low and hard from 20 metres, which evaded the outstretched arms of Arsenal’s diving goalkeeper Richard Wright.
However, some of the bite went out of the Deportivo attack when Tristan limped off two minutes later, with what a Deportivo official later called a minor hamstring twinge, to be replaced by former Spanish international Jose Emilio Amavisca.
Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger replaced the demoralised Wright, who has made several dreadful errors since replacing the injured David Seaman, with Stuart Taylor but later insisted it was because of an injury to Wright.
But Wenger could offer no excuses for a lame Arsenal surrender.
“It is a disappointing result especially in the way we lost the game. I felt we started well in the first five or six minutes but their second goal killed the game and I don’t think it was necessary to concede a goal like that.
“We made a good reaction to it in the second half to get back in which we didn’t get and it was difficult to get flowing without a goal,” he said.
Deportivo boss Javier Irureta meanwhile said his side’s win and their form in Europe this season indicated there was more depth to Spanish football.
“I said at the start of the season that we don’t need to fear anyone and that has proved to be the case,” Irureta said.
“I’m not saying that we will win the Champions’ League but I think we have shown that Spanish football is not just about Real Madrid and Barcelona,” he added.
Wednesday’s collated results:
Group C
In Athens:
Panathinaikos 0 Porto 0
In Prague:
Sparta Prague 2 Real Madrid 3
Group D
In La Coruna:
Deportivo Coruna 2 Arsenal 0
In Turin:
Juventus v Bayer Leverkusen - postponed due to heavy fog
Match to be played on Wednesday, November 28—AFP/Reuters
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