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| February 12, 2006 | Sunday | Muharram 13, 1427 |
European Soccer: Relegation threatened Boro stun Chelsea
LONDON, Feb 11: Middlesbrough applied the brakes to Chelsea’s Premier League title express in spectacular fashion on Saturday, humbling the champions 3-0 at the Riverside.
It was Chelsea’s second league defeat of the season and only the third since Jose Mourinho took over in 2004.
Third-placed Liverpool won 1-0 at Wigan Athletic to end a run of three defeats in four games, Sami Hyypia scoring the winner, while Arsenal needed a stoppage time equaliser from Brazilian Gilberto to salvage a 1-1 home draw with Bolton Wanderers.
Relegation-threatened Boro, without a home league win for six matches, took the lead inside two minutes through Fabio Rochemback before Stewart Downing added a second on halftime. Aiyegbeni Yakubu added a third after the break.
Second-placed Manchester United can cut Chelsea’s lead to 12 points when they play at Portsmouth in Saturday’s late game.
Everton’s revival continued with a 1-0 home victory over Blackburn Rovers despite playing for 80 minutes with 10 men. Fulham thrashed West Bromwich Albion 6-1 while managerless Newcastle United beat Aston Villa 2-1.
Earlier, Sami Hyypia was the unlikely scorer as Liverpool ended their recent slump by beating Wigan Athletic 1-0 at the JJB Stadium.
It also ended a run of three league defeats away from home ahead of Tuesday’s re-arranged match with Arsenal and left Liverpool three points behind second-placed Manchester United ahead of the Red Devils’ trip to drop candidates Portsmouth later Saturday.
Results:
Arsenal 1&nbps; &nbps;Bolton Wanderers 1
Aston Villa 1&nbps; &nbps;Newcastle United 2
Everton 1 &nbps; &nbps;Blackburn Rovers 0
Fulham 6 &nbps; &nbps;West Bromwich Albion 1
Middlesbrough 3 &nbps; &nbps;Chelsea 0
Wigan Athletic 0 &nbps; &nbps;Liverpool 1
GERMAN SOCCER
BERLIN: Schalke 04 thrashed Bayer Leverkusen 7-4 in an extraordinary Bundesliga encounter on Saturday while Werder Bremen’s title challenge faltered again as they lost at home to basement side Kaiserslautern.
With league leaders Bayern Munich not in action until Sunday, SV Hamburg leapfrogged over Werder with a 1-0 home victory over Mainz 05.
Hamburg have 44 points, seven behind Bayern, while Werder remain on 41.
Werder slumped as Kaiserslautern pulled off one of the shocks of the season by snatching a valuable 2-0 victory which lifts them off the bottom of the table thanks to goals from Boubacar Sanogo and Ervin Skela.
But most of the day’s action was in Gelsenkirchen where no fewer than six Schalke players found the net.
The home side raced into a 3-0 lead in the first 35 minutes before Andrey Voronin and Dimitar Berbatov pulled Leverkusen back to 3-2.
German international striker Kevin Kuranyi and Soren Larsen, with his second goal of the game, stretched Schalke’s lead to 5-2, only to see Voronin again and Jacek Krzynowek peg it back to 5-4.
Only when Brazilian Lincoln and substitute Gerald Asamoah scored did Schalke finally pull away as the home supporters went delirious.
VfB Stuttgart’s first match under new coach Armin Veh following the departure of Giovanni Trapattoni ended in misery as they went down 2-1 away to Arminia Bielefeld.
Results:
Schalke 7 Bayer Leverkusen 4
MSV Duisburg 1 Borussia M’bach 1
VfL Wolfsburg 1 Hertha Berlin 1
Werder Bremen 0 FC Kaiserslautern 2
Arminia Bielefeld 2 VfB Stuttgart 1
Hamburger SV 1 Mainz 05 0
Eintracht Frankfurt 0 Hannover 96 1
—Agencies
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