Howard’s Doing His Job
American goalkeeper Tim Howard earned his fourth shutout in five European Champions League games on Wednesday and his 11th shutout in 18 games since joining Manchester United as the defending English champion edged Panathinaikos, of Greece, 1-0, in Athens to advance to the final 16.
Also reaching the knockout phase of the Champions League were defending champion AC Milan; Portuguese champion and UEFA Cup winner FC Porto; Germany’s VfB Stuttgart; and high-flying Chelsea of England.
Uruguayan forward Diego Forlan scored Manchester United’s lone goal in the 85th minute.
AC Milan beat Ajax Amsterdam, 1-0, in Milan on the strength of a goal by Ukraine’s Andriy Shevchenko, while two goals by South African striker Benni McCarthy gave Porto a 2-0 home victory over Partizan Belgrade.
German Bundesliga leader VfB Stuttgart also won in a shutout, blanking Rangers of Scotland, 1-0, in Germany on a goal by Timo Wenzel.
Chelsea advanced to the final 16 with a 0-0 tie against Sparta Prague in London.
In another Champions League match of note Wednesday, Real Madrid knocked Olympique Marseille out of the tournament by winning, 2-1, in France on goals by David Beckham and Ronaldo.
Beckham’s goal, off a free kick, was the 600th in Champions League/European Cup competition by nine-time winners Real Madrid, putting Beckham in some elite company.
Former Argentine great Alfredo Di Stefano scored the 100th, and former Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas scored the 200th.
Real Madrid, Juventus and AS Monaco earlier advanced to the final 16.
The remaining eight teams will be known after the final series of first-round matches Dec. 9-10. Knockout play begins Feb. 24.
World Cup 2006
Guam, which had been assured of automatically advancing to the next round of World Cup 2006 qualifying in Asia because of the withdrawal of its opponent, Nepal, announced that it too was withdrawing.
A spokesman for FIFA said the best losing team from the remaining six playoff matches for a place in Asia’s final 32 would advance in Guam’s place.
Meanwhile in Tokyo, Japan’s Football Assn. revealed that the Asian Football Confederation has selected Japan, South Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Uzbekistan as the eight seeded teams once the 32-team qualifying phase begins in February.
Quick Passes
Former Manchester United player Mark Hughes announced that he will remain Wales’ coach after narrowly failing to qualify the team for Euro 2004 in Portugal next summer.... The Korean Football Assn. said South Korea will play Germany in a friendly international in the port city of Pusan on Dec. 19, 2004, in a rematch of the 2002 World Cup semifinal that Germany won, 1-0.... Former German international Stefan Effenberg has been fined $117,700 for insulting a policeman who stopped him for speeding. Effenberg, 35, denied the charge, but a judge in Braunschweig in the north of Germany levied the maximum possible fine of 20 times the normal fine of $5,885 because Effenberg, now playing in Qatar, refused to state his income.... The 2003 Women’s World Cup, which was played in the United States after being moved from China because of fears over the SARS outbreak, netted U.S. Soccer an estimated profit of $6 million, according to federation spokesman Jim Moorhouse.
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Times wires services contributed to this report.
