Champions League Final: United have done it again

The fourth final since 2001 which was decided in a penalty shootout and the funnny thing for the Germans is that those were two english clubs going at it after extra time. England always has the image of failing in a penalty shootout as they had done so very often in the past, especially on the national team level. But let’s start from the beginning.

Champions League – Last 16 (Leg 2)

FC Porto – FC Schalke 04 1:4 (a.p.)
Real Madrid – AS Roma 1:2
FC Chelsea – Olympiakos Piraeus 3:0
Internazionale – Liverpool FC (11.3.) -:-
FC Barcelona – Celtic Glasgow 1:0
Manchester United – Olympique Lyonnais 1:0
FC Sevilla – Fenerbahce Istanbul 2:3 (a.p.)
AC Milan – Arsenal 0:2

Champions League – Last 16 (Leg 1)

Arsenal London – AC Milan 0:0
Celtic Glasgow – FC Barcelona 2:3
Fenerbahce Istanbul – FC Sevilla 3:2
Olympique Lyonnais – Manchester United 1:1
FC Schalke 04 – FC Porto 1:0
Liverpool FC – Internazionale 2:0
AS Roma – Real Madrid 2:1
Olympiakos Piraeus – Chelsea FC 0:0

How crazy can you get – Bayern suspends Oliver Kahn for one match

Just as the Champions League matches get into the final minutes – and it looks as if Schalke will advance and Bremen will end up in the UEFA Cup – there is a special program on the German Sports Station DSF (German Sports Television) about the suspension of Oliver Kahn. These are the facts: the clubs suspended the player because of displinary reasons for one game and he will have to pay another 25.000 Euros. That’s it. Of course it’s a journalists duty to dig for further reasons which might have had an influence on the decision of the club. But the way those blokes of DSF do it it just gets way too hilarious. First up they show a report about the morining practice session of Bayern Munich in which goalkeeping coach Sepp Maier gives a rather enigmatic interview in which he tries to indicate that there was something going on which he knows what it is but he won’t tell the media. You get the picture.

Uefa Cup: All German teams go through to the group stages

Although I didn’t really have a chance to watch any of the matches of the first round of the Uefa Cup I still read an interesting comment by German sports writer Christoph Biermann who said that it is nice to see that the smaller teams of the German Bundesliga all made it through to the group stage this year. Keeping in mind that the almighty Bayern Munich are in there for Germany as well compared to other European superpowers the result doesn’t look that bad for Germany.