2013 UEFA Champions League Final: Bayern Munich vs. Borussia Dortmund

MADRID -- Borussia Dortmund needed every bit of its first-leg advantage to stave off a comeback attempt by Real Madrid and reach the Champions League final for the first time since 1997.

Karim Benzema scored in the 83rd minute and Sergio Ramos in the 88th, putting Real Madrid in position to advance with one more goal. But Dortmund held on for a 4-3 aggregate win following a 2-0 loss Tuesday night.

"They put a lot of pressure on us," Dortmund midfielder Kevin Grosskreutz said. "However, we are a great club and deserved to go through."

Bundesliga champion Bayern Munich has a four-goal advantage on Barcelona ahead of Wednesday's game. The Champions League final is May 25 at London's Wembley Stadium, setting up the possibility of the first all-German final in soccer's top club competition.

"Wembley will be one of the greatest moments in our lives, but whichever team we meet, we will not be the favorite," Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp said. "In Wembley everyone will see we are not going to be satisfied with just being a finalist."

Madrid, which has not reached the final since winning its record ninth title in 2002, was eliminated in the semifinals for the third straight year under coach Jose Mourinho. Trailing Barcelona by 11 points in the Spanish League with five games left, Real's only realistic hope for a title this season comes when it hosts Atletico Madrid in the Copa del Rey final on May 17.

Mourinho is expected to leave after his third season, perhaps to return to Chelsea in England's Premier League. Asked whether he will remain with Madrid next season, Mourinho replied: "Maybe not." He then said, "I love to be where people love me to be."

"I know in England I am loved. ... I know I'm loved by some clubs, especially one," he said. "In Spain the situation is a bit different because some people hate me."

Dortmund's last visit to the final since 1997 was a 3-1 victory over Juventus at Munich's Olympic Stadium for its only European title.

Robert Lewandowski, who scored all four goals for Dortmund last week, missed two good chances in the second half, shooting over the crossbar in the 49th and hitting the crossbar a minute later. Diego Lopez kept Madrid in the series when he dived to save Ilkay Gundogan's close-range shot in the 62nd.

English referee Howard Webb called for five minutes of stoppage time, creating a nervy finish after Ramos' goal.

"It's a shame. Sometimes you lose. That is football," Ramos said. "In Dortmund we should have played the way we did tonight. We feel for the fans. It's a shame to have been so close, but the missed chances in the first half were costly."

No team has overcome a three-goal deficit from the first leg in a Champions League knockout stage matchup since Deportivo La Coruna beat AC Milan 4-0 in the 2003-04 quarterfinals for a 5-4 aggregate win.

BARCELONA, Spain -- Bayern Munich beat a Barcelona side missing Lionel Messi3-0 on Wednesday to seal a crushing 7-0 win on aggregate and line up an all-German Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund.

Without its all-time leading scorer, apparently not fit from his right hamstring injury, Barcelona failed to seriously threaten Bayern's goal - much less an epic comeback after its 4-0 first-leg defeat.

Bayern forward Arjen Robben opened the scoring in the 49th minute. Barcelona'sGerard Pique scored an own goal in the 72nd, followed by Thomas Mueller's headed goal four minutes later, as Barcelona slumped to its first home loss in European competition since 2009.

Bayern will face Dortmund in the final on May 25 at Wembley Stadium.

While fellow Spanish side Real Madrid won 2-0 on Tuesday to almost reverse its 4-1 first-leg loss to Dortmund, Barcelona didn't even come close and definitely didn't bow out of Europe's top-tier competition gracefully.

Instead, its second stinging defeat to the newly-crowned German champions will surely open a period of reflection in the club, despite being on course to win the Spanish league title. The Catalan side has been seriously outclassed for the first time since a trophy-laden era started in 2008 under the guidance of former coach Pep Guardiola, who will take over as Bayern coach next season.

Cracks had already appeared in Barcelona's dominance during the round of 16 with a 2-0 loss at AC Milan, before Messi dug down and scored twice to help secure a 4-0 win.

And after this tie, it's clear that the power has shifted away from Camp Nou further east.

Besides Messi, Barcelona was also missing Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, Carles Puyol and Javier Mascherano. But the truth is that even with several Spanish internationals on the pitch Bayern, was once again the better side.

Bayern destroyed Barcelona in their first meeting last week, looking both the fresher and more imaginative side, while holding Messi in check without much trouble.

And although Messi had done little in the loss in Germany, nobody had expected him not to start - given that his team faced an already daunting challenge of pulling off a historic comeback.

Since injuring his leg on April 2 against Paris Saint-Germain, Messi's only start had been against Bayern. He had missed three games and come off the bench in two more, including last Saturday's Spanish league game at Athletic Bilbao where he looked to be back in top shape after scoring a superb goal and setting up another in the 2-2 draw.

If coach Tito Vilanova had kept Messi on the bench to spur his other players on, the plan backfired.

Camp Nou was uncharacteristically subdued from the start as if the absence of Messi had robbed the home fans of their last hopes.

Neither side played with the tension expected for a Champions League semifinal; Bayern because it was in command, and Barcelona seemingly lacking in belief.

Needing to score at least four goals to send the game into extra time, Barcelona didn't seriously threaten Bayern's area in the first 45 minutes and was limited to Pedro Rodriguez's rising shot in the 24th to give goalkeeper Manuel Neuer his first save.

Barcelona could muster little else, while Bayern provided a constant threat on the break.

Having failed to complete that last pass in the first 45 minutes, Bayern finally converted just after halftime when Robben received the ball on the right flank, cut back to his left to shake off Adriano, and curled one of his trademark left-footed shots over the outstretched Victor Valdes and into the far side of the net.

Bayern then pressed its advantage and quickly turned a win into humbling of Barcelona.

Pique added to the home side's misery when he kneed Frank Ribery's cross into his own net in an attempt to clear.

Mueller then netted his third goal of the series when Ribery picked him out at the far post to head home his cross over Valdes.

South China: 2012-13 Hong Kong First Division Champions

---

South China win Hong Kong league title after Kitchee falter

Saturday, 20 April, 2013, 12:00am

Sport›Hong Kong

SOCCER

Chan Kin-wa kinwa.chan@scmp.com

Kitchee handed the RedMR First Division title to rivals South China after they were held to a 1-1 draw by Sun Pegasus at Yuen Long Stadium last night.

With only one match left for the season, the two-time champions now have no chance to make up the four-point gap between themselves and the Caroliners, whose result against Southern at Aberdeen Sports Ground today will have no bearing on the title now.

"We introduced more young players at the beginning of the season and it seemed to have worked," said South China convener Steven Lo Kit-sing last night.

We introduced more young players at the beginning of the season and it seemed to have worked

South China convener Steven Lo Kit-sing

"We have been leading the league all the way until March when we suffered two surprising defeats, allowing Kitchee to come back at us. But fortunately the players bounced back. We must avoid making the same mistakes next season."

Lo said the newly crowned champions, who thrashed Kitchee 4-1 last Sunday, won't be celebrating until they play their last league match against Sunray Cave Sun Hei at home.

Pegasus, meanwhile, remain in seventh place on 18 points and remain in relegation danger. The club's future will become clearer after today's match between two strugglers - Sun Hei and Wofoo Tai Po. Sun Hei, who are on 14 points, must win the away match to avoid making the big drop.

Kitchee got off to a good start last night when Yago Gonzalez converted a six-minute penalty, but his effort was cancelled out by Deng Jinghuang 10 minutes into the second half.

Meanwhile, the inaugural Hong Kong Premier League may comprise 10 teams, even though next term's 'transition season' will feature 12.

The proposed professional league is due to kick off in autumn next year. There will be 12 teams in the 2013/14 season with one team relegated and three teams being promoted from the Second Division at the end of this season.

Hong Kong Football Association CEO Mark Sutcliffe said the number of Premier League teams had not been finalised.

"All we can say is the 12 teams of the transitional season will be granted first refusal for the inaugural Premier League season, but it doesn't mean they can all be there automatically," said Sutcliffe.

"They still have to apply for a license and sign the participation agreement which will specify what their obligations are.

"We don't know how many of the teams will be eligible for the license at this stage, but in quite a lot of areas the clubs will have to improve significantly from where they are now if they want to achieve this."

Topics: 

RedMR First Division

South China

Kitchee

---

Source URL (retrieved on Apr 24th 2013, 4:37am): http://www.scmp.com/sport/hong-kong/article/1218604/south-china-win-hong-kong-league-title-after-kitchee-falter

Manchester United: 2012-13 Premier League Champions

As the key signing Robin van Persie volleyed Manchester United to their 20th league title watched by an Old Trafford crowd which did really look like 76,000 including two Glazer brothers in their cushioned seats, there was the sense that a rancourous era is ending and a new period of United strength beginning. After the fiery 2005 protests against the US family's hostile, debt-loading takeover, renewed in 2010 when they spent more of United's fortunes reorganising the source of their borrowing, Old Trafford has quietened.

Last night , and throughout this season, there have been fewer protests, and the defiant green and gold symbol of the club's original colours and working-class values became less visible. All the issues the Manchester United Supporters Trust (Must) and other fans' groups protested about in a well-informed campaign remain true. The Glazers, with no previous connection to United or English football, really were allowed, by United's availability on the London stock market and football's lack of regulation, to buy one of the world's greatest football clubs and load it with £525m of debt.

This debt was not borrowed by the club to invest in an academy or expand Old Trafford – that was done with cash made in the previous 13 years of Premier League success. The £525m was the Glazers' own borrowing to buy United, then they loaded their debt mountain on to the club itself to repay the debt and interest. Perhaps the most staggering perspective on this is to understand that in interest, fees paid to bankers, lawyers and accountants, and other hits of finance charges, the Glazer takeover has cost United more than £550m. Yet even after paying all that, United still have £420m debt derived from the Glazers' takeover.

In 2011-12, even with the crowd more resigned to it all, United paid £50m in interest on this debt. The Glazers paid themselves a £10m dividend, to pay off the £10m loan they borrowed from United in 2010, £1.6m by each of Malcolm Glazer's six children. The club paid a £3m management fee to the Glazers' company and Kevin Glazer, one of Malcolm's five sons, was owed £558,484 interest, having bought up some of United's debt for himself.

While United fans raged, informed by those with professional expertise such as Andy Green, the investment analyst who chronicled all the eye-watering details on his Andersred blog there was silence from the Premier League and Football Association. Now, with Sir Alex Ferguson's latest United team claiming the title, there is more silence around Old Trafford, the acoustics being tested for their noise-generating capabilities.

The Glazers have outstayed the protests, which even included the formation of the breakaway, supporter-owned club FC United of Manchester, partly because they came through the financial challenge their dealings created. For a time it looked difficult, even for this most famous and well-followed club in the greatest of booms for football. The Glazers took over a United being recast by Ferguson, who had signed Rio Ferdinand for £30m in 2002, Cristiano Ronaldo for £12m in 2003 and Wayne Rooney for £25m in 2004. Even as the fans vilified the corporate raiders, United won three successive Premier Leagues in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and the Champions League in 2008.

Despite that supreme success, and United's income being dramatically higher than any other club, they haemorrhaged losses. In the year to 30 June 2007 United paid £82m in interest on £667m debts from the Glazers' own borrowings – and made a financial loss of £58m. In 2007-08, the year they won the Premier League and Champions League double, the £69m interest they paid pushed United into a loss of £45m. As some United campaigners exasperatedly pointed out, the "leveraged" buy-out, loading debt on to a healthy company solely to make money for bankers and owners, meant United were no longer paying UK corporation tax because they had been pushed from profit into loss.

That summer of 2008, Ferguson did sign Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham Hotspur for £30.75m, a trademark signing of a major star from a Premier League rival.

After that, though, coinciding with the club's submersion in debt, Ferguson's signings appeared markedly less ambitious. In the summer of 2009, when Real Madrid paid £80m for Ronaldo, United banked most of it. Ferguson signed the solid Antonio Valencia for £16m from Wigan Athletic, Gabriel Obertan, £3m from Bordeaux, and, on a free transfer, 29-year-old Michael Owen, who went on to play six full league matches for United.

In 2009-10, the year the Glazers refinanced their borrowings with bonds and the fans yearned for the green and gold simplicities of the club's Newton Heath beginnings, United recorded a £79m loss and had fully £107m interest to pay. United were pushed into second place by Chelsea and won nothing, Sheikh Mansour was pouring money into City acquisitions, but that summer Ferguson signed the promising Chris Smalling and Javier Hernández, and spent £7.4m on the enduring Portuguese puzzle of Bébé.

United looked to be wobbling then, but three key changes have enabled the Glazers to ride it out. First, in late 2010, they settled the excruciatingly high interest "payment in kind" part of their borrowings, from funds whose source they have still never revealed.

Second, supervised by Edward Woodward in a London office, a team of sales staff was slicing the world into sponsorships, by product sector, globally, and regionally, squeezing so much more money from selling the United name that commercial income last year reached £118m.

Third, they scoured the world for a stock market to accept their route to partial salvation. The 134-year-old Manchester football club ended up registered in the Cayman Islands and floated in New York as an "emerging growth company". The Glazers made £70m selling shares themselves, United received £70m selling shares to new investors including the speculator George Soros. Crucially, according to Duncan Drasdo, Must's chief executive, this float sees them safer because they can sell shares on the market if they ever need cash.

With Ferguson gazumped to the Premier League title by City's £38m Sergio Agüero in the 94th minute of last season's final game, the Van Persie signing felt like a landmark response. At 29, the Dutchman contradicted Ferguson's assurances that his patchy signings of previous years were because he was now interested only in youth. The signing signalled determination at United not to be outdone by Mansour's multi-millions being spent at City and that, although still hugely debt-laden, they are financially through the worst.

So it was fitting that United reclaimed the title with Van Persie's hat-trick. The Glazers have, in some watershed sense, come out the other side, owning Manchester United, their own personal asset now worth more than twice the £790m they paid for it with so much borrowed money.

On Tuesday night Bayern Munich and Barcelona play each other in the Champions League semi-final, two great clubs still in the traditional ownership of their supporters. England's champions represent a dramatically different incarnation: football clubs as objects of financial speculation, and modern-day banking practices we would all feel better never having known about.

2013 NBA Playoffs: First Round Matchups