By Yusuf Adua
Football is truly a global game with Europe being the epicenter of the team sport. European football outsmarts every other Continent in terms of management, marketing, and fan base. Aside from the various glamorous leagues we have, there are also the prestigious UEFA Champions and Europa Leagues that glue everyone to their TV screens.
Having seen English teams dominated both continental competitions in 2019/20, all football lovers knew that the 2019/20 season would be a battle to finish. Liverpool thumped Tottenham 2_0 in the premier competition while Chelsea thought Arsenal a lesson with a four-one rout in the second_tier competition. It was a widely held view that none of the finals lived up to expectation, particularly, that of the Europa League in Baku.
The champions league season started as usual with a number of powerful favourite out of which the eventual winner was one; Liverpool, Manchester City, Juventus, Barcelona, PSG, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich.
There was still space for underdogs like Borussia Dortmund, Inter, Atletico Madrid which bookmakers were thinking they could spring up surprises considering the abundance of firepower at their disposal.
Teams like Club Brugge, Lyon, and Salzburg were not given any chance taking a closer look at how tough their groups were, while Genk, Locomotiv Moscow, and Dinamo Zagreb were seen as cakewalks.
The road to the Europa league was long as usual but Arsenal, Manchester United, Wolves, Sevilla, Basel, Roma, and Sporting CP were some of the names that were in everybody’s lips. PSV, Celtic, Lazio, Frankfurt, Monchengladbach, and host of other traditional teams were seen as sides that could possibly put up a fight while Lugano, Rosenborg, Dudelange were correctly written off.
The champions league group stages didn’t come without drama; Paris Saint Germain had to slog it out with a struggling Los Blancos, Real Madrid, the group of death where Barca, Inter, Dortmund and Slavia Praha were deposited into the same bin, Napoli defeating Liverpool and the exploits of the free_scoring Salzburg, as well as Chelsea in the midst of Lille, Ajax, and Valencia, a relatively balanced matchup.
Meanwhile, the rule has it that teams that came third in their groups in the UCL would join the qualified 24 teams in the Europa League to play the round of 32. Club Brugge, Olympiacos, Shakhtar, Leverkusen, Red Bull Salzburg, Inter, Benfica, and Ajax, who couldn’t scale through dropped to the second tier after matchday six of the champions league.
There came where the big boys would be separated from ordinary men, the champions league round of 16. It came as a surprise as Atletico Madrid sent out defending champions Liverpool, Leipzig thrashing Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham, Bayern Munich rolling over Chelsea at their home ground and Lyon triumphing against Ronaldo’s Juventus.
The highlight of the Europa League round of 32 was that Arsenal exhausted the bullets in their guns as they were eliminated at home by Olympiacos after having a 1—0 advantage in the first leg. Getafe also unexpectedly knocked out champions league rebels, Ajax, Copenhagen wounded Celtic and Leverkusen sent Porto parking.
During the round of 16 ties, Shakhtar Donetsk punished Wolfsburg, Manchester United defeated LASk, and Basel downed Frankfurt among the interesting results that we saw. COVID_19 did not only come to halt football but also necessitated a one-legged format for the other round of 16 matches, eventual finalists Sevilla and Inter won against Roma and Getafe respectively; the Spanish_Italy connection.
The quarter-final of the two most followed continental football, the clash of the titans served us the juice as expected though under a different terrain. The champions league resumed in Portugal while the Europa was staged in Germany in a one-legged format.
The fans of Barcelona would have destiny to blame for succumbing to their second heavy humiliation by Bayern in this decade after being downed by seven unreplied goals over two legs in 2013 and going on to win treble that season under Jupp Henykes, they lost eight goals to two with their loanee, Philippe Countinho scoring twice after coming on as a substitute.
Julian Naglesman’s inexperienced Leipzig triumphed against the well_drilled Atletico Madrid despite being the dark horse, two late goals at the death guaranteed PSG’s qualification after being on the wrong foot and a goal down against wasteful Atalanta with Cameroon’s Choupo Moting recuperating his aching personality with the winning goal and Lyon’s win against The citizens, Manchester City, with Mousa Dembele scoring twice from the bench, compounded Guardiola’s champions league miseries despite being the better side for the majority of the encounter.
Elsewhere, Bruno Fernandes’s penalty was enough for the Red Devils to edge Copenhagen, Inter overpowered Leverkusen, Shakhtar disciplined Basel and Sevilla pipped wolves in the other quarterfinal game of the Europa League.
The semi-final of the champions league produced two survivors from the purported farmers’ league(German Bundesliga and French League One). Former Arsenal and Westbrom Outcast, Serge Gnabry stole the show as Bayern sank Lyon with three unreplied goals while PSG perfected their ways against Leipzig with the same scoreline getting to the final of the champions league for the first time in their history with Angel Di Maria, that outstanding frontman who scored the lone goal against Nigeria in the final of the Beijing Olympics men football competition in 2008, getting on the scoresheet.
Penalty alone couldn’t save Manchester United as Sevilla bossed them with two goals to one in the first semifinal game of the Europa league while an improved Romelu Lukaku punished Shakhtar with two goals as Inter outclassed the Ukrainian club with five goals to nothing.
The final of the truly global exciting football competitions provides befitting competitors for the first time in years.
Romelu Lukaku became the hero as well as the villain in just one match; scored the opening and an own goal in the final where Antonio Conte’s Inter Milan played against Sevilla. Conte was looking for his first continental title as a manager after guiding the Italian club to a major final since 2010. Sevilla was aiming to win their historic sixth Europa league trophy but first, under Julian Lopetegui, a manager who hasn’t had the best of times having been axed out of the Spanish National Team and Real Madrid in sorry circumstances lately.
The game served us with a lot of goals, intrigues, and excitement as Newcastle United flop, Luke DeJong scored twice to justify his inclusion to the starting lineup as the game ended 3—2 in favour of the Spanish club.
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PSG will have to wait for another year as they were undone by a Kingsley Conan’s header, their former player in the much_awaited champions league final despite rumours that they were promised a lot of incentives if they could come out victorious.
PSG’s lethal attack spearheaded by Neymar could do little to muster any fightback as Thomas Tuchel’s troops were fallen. Hansi Flick’s resurgence of his Bayern’s side paid off. A manager who came in with little experience after the Bavarians were thrashed 6-1 by Frankfurt early on in the campaign. He transformed Bayern to winning a treble since 2013.
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Polish and Bayern striker, Robert Lewandowski led this year’s scoring chart in the champions league with 15 goals while Erling Braut Haaland(Dortmund) and Serge Gnabry (Bayern Munich) scored 10 and 9 goals respectively. In the Europa league, Alfredo Morelos was the king in goals.
The Celtic forward scored 14 goals and way above Raúl Jiménez of Wolves who had 10 goals and ranked second. Diogo Jota(Wolves) and Danel Sinani (Dudelange) occupied the joint third spot with 9 goals each.
We Celebrate FC Bayern Munich for their sixth champion league win and at the same time congratulate Sevilla on their sixth Europa League crown as well. That’s the size of our package on the review of the 2019/20 UEFA club competitions, News Live Nigeria hopes that the coming season brings greater excitement.