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| December 6, 2001 | Thursday | Ramazan 20, 1422 |
Arsenal’s campaign back on trail
PARIS, Dec 5: Two goals from Arsenal’s Swedish midfielder Fredrik Ljungberg and another from Thierry Henry put Arsenal’s Champions League campaign firmly back on track on Tuesday with a 3-1 win over Juventus at Highbury.
Juve were a mere shadow of the side who had beaten Bayer Leverkusen 4-0 a week earlier.
Their consolation strike - credited as an own goal to Arsenal keeper Stuart Taylor from David Trezeguet’s snapshot - could not take the gloss of the Gunners’ victory as the English Premiership side made up for their opening loss at Deportivo La Coruna.
Group D is now finely poised as Juve, Arsenal, Leverkusen and Deportivo all have a win and a defeat from their opening pair of second phase matches.
And Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger said the performance encouraged him to believe his men would use their superb showing as a springboard into the last eight.
“The team is getting better and better. Now we have to achieve points away from home. I think the first side to get an away result away from home will qualify,” the Frenchman said in allusion to Arsenal’s three opening phase defeats on the road.
Juve coach Marcelo Lippi said his side had given Arsenal too much space.
“They’re a good side. We can’t say we were dominated throughout - but we let them play too much. Still, we remain top of the group,” Lippi said.
La Coruna, meanwhile, suffered their first loss of this season’s event as they ran into an inspired Leverkusen, who swept past them 3-0 in Germany with second-half goals from Ze Roberto, Oliver Neuville and Michael Ballack.
Just as Juve failed to find their form so the Spaniards were almost unrecognisable from the side which had seen off Arsenal so emphatically a fortnight earlier.
Only reigning European champions Bayern Munich, who play Nantes on Wednesday in France, have yet to suffer a single defeat in tis season’s competition.
Leverkusen coach Klaus Toppmoller saluted his side for fighting back after their nightmare in Turin.
“We knew we had to take this chance. La Coruna have a very strong team but we had their measure from the first minute,” Toppmoller said.
“The only black mark was not taking our chances in the first half.”
Leverkusen skipper Jens Nowotny said the Juve loss was forgotten.
“We can be proud of this showing - and we showed we have come right back from that lowpoint.”
In Group C, eight-times winners Real Madrid are well on their way towards the quarterfinals after crushing Greek side Panathinaikos 3-0 at the Bernabeu Stadium.
Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo simply ran the show for the Meringues who put on a display of exhibition football.
Vicente Del Bosque’s men controlled the match and Panathinaikos were unable to add to earlier victories over Arsenal, Real Mallorca and Schalke 04 as Ivan Helguera opened the scoring in the first half and Raul poached two more after the break.
Panathinaikos defender Panayotis Fissas was meanwhile booked for a tackle on Figo in the 39th minute and will miss their next match.
Zidane set up the opener with a brilliant long ball for Helguera to chest down and fire home from an acute angle.
Brazilian Roberto Carlos set up the second with a cross on 66 minutes and Raul courageously scored with a diving header - though he was struck in the face in the process.
Raul made the game safe on 72 minutes later from close range to take his season tally in the competition to five.
“There’s a lot of quality in this team,” said Zidane afterwards.
“Six points from two matches - you can’t argue with that,” said the mercurial French international.
Real have already opened up a three-point lead as Sparta Prague, who lost at home to the Spaniards in their previous outing, leapfrogged 1987 European champions FC Porto into second place with a 1-0 victory in Portugal, Libor Sionko heading in after 75 minutes.
Tuesday’s results:
Group C
At Madrid
Real Madrid 3 Panathinaikos 0
At Porto, Portugal
FC Porto 0 Sparta Prague 1
Group D
At Leverkusen, Germany
Bayer Leverkusen 3 Deportivo La Coruna 0
At London
Arsenal 3 Juventus 1
—AFP
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