Galaxy Eliminated in Champions Cup
Major League Soccer’s interest in the CONCACAF Champions Cup vanished Wednesday night when the league’s last two remaining teams, the Galaxy and the Columbus Crew, both bowed out.
The Galaxy lost, 2-1, to Necaxa at Aguascalientes, Mexico, as the 1999 Champions Cup winners completed a two-game quarterfinal sweep of Los Angeles, winning the series, 6-2, on aggregate.
The Crew, meanwhile, bounced back from a 6-0 loss to Morelia in Mexico last week to beat the Monarcas, 2-0, in Columbus, Ohio, on first-half goals by Edson Buddle and Jeff Cunningham. Columbus could not make up the rest of the deficit, however, especially after defender Eric Denton’s ejection in the 31st minute left it a man short for the last hour.
In its match, the Galaxy took the lead when Chris Albright scored on a header off a cross from Jesus Ochoa in the 20th minute. But Rodolfo Espinoza tied it on a penalty kick during injury time at the end of the first half and then scored the winner for Necaxa midway through the second half.
“I think every American team that has come into Mexico or Central America has had a penalty kick called against it,” said Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid, who said his team would now concentrate on MLS play. “This thing [the Champions Cup] is behind us. It’s over.”
Necaxa will play Morelia in the tournament semifinals, which could be an all-Mexican affair.
A third Mexican team, Toluca, clinched its place in the semifinals Wednesday, defeating Municipal of Guatemala on goals by Vicente Sanchez and Emmanuel Ruiz. Toluca probably will play Club America, which overwhelmed Alajuelense of Costa Rica, 4-0, at Mexico City on Wednesday in the first game of their quarterfinal series. Two second-half goals by Marcelo Lipatin and one each by Hugo Castillo and Cuauhtemoc Blanco brought about the rout at Azteca Stadium.
Arsenal Tied
Defending English champion Arsenal was held to a 2-2 tie by league leader Manchester United, leaving this season’s championship race still too close to call.
Manchester United retained its three-point lead atop the standings but has only four games left compared to Arsenal’s five.
United took the lead on a 24th-minute goal by Dutch forward Ruud Van Nistelrooy, but goals by French striker Thierry Henry in the 51st and 62nd minutes put the Gunners in front. Welsh winger Ryan Giggs tied the score one minute after Henry’s second.
The game was marred by the expulsion of Arsenal defender Sol Campbell for elbowing Manchester’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the face eight minutes from the end. Campbell faces a multi-game suspension.
South Korea Loses
Japan scored a rare victory over South Korea in a friendly international at Seoul between the co-hosts of the 2002 World Cup.
After the Koreans dominated much of the match but failed to make the best of their scoring chances, Japan snatched a 1-0 win two minutes into stoppage time when an attempted clearance kick by Korean defender Cho Byoung-Kuk struck Japanese forward Yuichiro Nagai on the shin and rebounded into the net.
“To be honest, I didn’t know much about it,” Nagai said. “The ball hit me and flew in. It was a strange goal.”
Korean fans in the crowd of 65,000 pelted the Seoul World Cup Stadium field with plastic bottles at the end as a measure of their frustration.
South Korea leads the all-time series, 37-17-11.
German Debt
According to figures released by the Bundesliga on Wednesday, Germany’s 36 professional clubs are $648 million in debt, with about three-quarters of that amount owed by the 18 first-division clubs.
The 36 teams had a combined income of $1.4 billion last season, but that figure is expected to drop by $200 million this season because of the bankruptcy of KirchMedia, which held the Bundesliga’s television rights.
Brazil On Track
Brazil Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said he will not bow to public pressure and introduce new young players into the squad until the veterans put the team well on track to qualify for the 2006 World Cup.
In naming his roster for an April 30 game against Mexico at Guadalajara, Parreira admitted that many of last year’s World Cup winners appear jaded, but he stuck with them nevertheless.
“If I just looked at the performance of the players who are based abroad, I wouldn’t pick half of them,” Parreira told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. “But the important thing is that they are established and we have a lot of confidence in these players.”
