Posts Tagged ‘UEFA Cup’

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UEFA Cup Quarter-Finals Draw (2008-09): Udinese Get Werder Bremen

Friday, March 20th, 2009

UEFA Cup

The draw for the Quarter-Finals of the UEFA Champions League took place at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland, today at 13:00 CET (I liveblogged the event on Soccerlens).

Udinese, the only Serie A team remaining in Europe, can be moderately satisfied. They have the chance to avenge AC Milan, but will have to watch out from conceding too many goals. Despite a rather bleak Bundesliga campaign this year, Bremen have grown accustomed to scoring lots of ‘em in recent years.

I’ll make a more elaborate analysis later in the day, but for now here are the draw results.

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2008/09 UEFA Cup
Quarter-Finals
to be played April 9 and 16

.

Hamburg
Hamburg
vs.
Man City
Manchester City
Paris SG
Paris SG
vs.
Dynamo Kiev
Dynamo Kiev
Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar
vs.
Marseille
Marseille
Werder Bremen
Werder
vs.
Udinese
Udinese


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2008/09 UEFA Cup
Semi-Finals
to be played April 30 and May 7

.

Werder/Udinese
vs.
Hamburg/Man City
PSG/D.Kiev
vs.
Shakhtar/Marseille

.
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Zenit St. Petersburg 1-0 Udinese: Bianconeri Scraping their Way to Quarter-Finals (UEFA Cup Round of 16, 2nd Leg)

Friday, March 20th, 2009

Players of Udinese react after UEFA Cup Round of 16 second leg soccer match against Zenit at the Petrovsky stadium in St.Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, March 19, 2009. Udinese lost 0-1 but gets to the next round. (AP Photo)

Through to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, for the first time ever. Thursday’s 1-0 loss in St. Petersburg was a “happy” loss for Udinese, as Pasquale Marino’s boys achieved a club milestone by beating current champions FC Zenit 2-1 on aggregate, and qualifying for the last 8 of Europe’s “lesser” competition.

If one wanted to push a “schoolyard logic” here, we could say that Zenit beat Man Utd (Super Cup), Udinese beat Zenit, and that therefore Udinese > Man Utd. Ah to be 8 years old again… The Italian 2008-09 adventure in Europe is not looking so grim after all.

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Udinese 2-0 Zenit St. Petersburg: All Hail the Pride of Italy… (UEFA Cup Round of 16, 1st Leg)

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

(LEFT) Udinese's Fabio Quagliarella, left, celebrates after scoring with his teammate Simone Pepe, during a UEFA Cup, Round of 16, first-leg soccer match between Udinese and Zenit St. Petersburg, in Udine, Italy, Thursday, March 12, 2009. (AP Photo) (RIGHT) Udinese's Antonio Di Natale celebrates after scoring on a penalty kick during a UEFA Cup, Round of 16, first-leg soccer match between Udinese and Zenit St. Petersburg, in Udine, Italy, Thursday, March 12, 2009. (AP Photo) (

All together now: “Thank you Udinese!!”.

The Italian disaster-fest that was the UEFA Champions League this year will not be easily forgotten, but at least there is one team giving us consolation and keeping the peninsula’s pride elevated (to moderate heights at least) as they mantain their presence in Europe’s second-choice cup: the UEFA (soon-to-be Europa) Cup.

With this win, the Bianconeri have demonstrated that their darkest days are finally behind them and to sweeten the deal even further, Udinese’s opponents Thursday night were none other than 2007 Russian Premier League and 2008 UEFA Cup Winners Zenit St. Petersburg, the very same team which not even five months ago was battling it out against Real Madrid and Juventus in the UCL.

Just something to keep the naysayers quiet…

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AC Milan 2-2 Werder Bremen: Claudio Pizarro Vaporizes Rossoneri’s European Dreams (UEFA Cup Round of 32, 2nd Leg)

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

Bremen forward Claudio Pizarro, right, of Peru, scores a goal as AC Milan defender Paolo Maldini looks on during the UEFA Cup, Round of 32, second-leg soccer match between AC Milan and Bremen, at the San Siro stadium, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009. (AP Photo)

Don’t trust the numbers you read between Milan and Werder Bremen in the title: the scoreline may say 2-2 but this was match with only one team on the grass. And it certainly wasn’t the Rossoneri. For not only did Werder fight back from an (undeserved) 0-2 half-time deficit: the German side had literally every other goalscoring chance of the 90 minutes, capitalizing the playmaking skills of Diego and lethal aerial ability of Claudio Pizarro.

The idea of winning the only silverware missing from Milan’s trophy room might have been tempting, but Berlusconi has to come down to the sad reality of things: this is a team in need of change, and team needing change fast. “Experience” and “name prestige” just don’t do it anymore.

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Ajax 1-1 Fiorentina: A Dutch Kick in the Teeth for La Viola (UEFA Cup Round of 32, 2nd Leg)

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

Ajax player Leonardo, right, scores 1-1 as Fiorentina goalkeeper Sebastien Frey, center, dives to stop the ball during their UEFA Cup round of 32 second leg soccer match at ArenA stadium in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Thursday Feb. 26, 2009. Ajax continues to the next round. (AP Photo)

When a team competes in both its domestic league and European cups, there are bound to be subtle differences in the way they play in each competition. Sometimes, the difference isn’t even so subtle. You wanna know in the last month what that difference is for Fiorentina? Domestically, La Viola play average and get full points from their matches; in Europe, they dominate for 90 minutes and are left with nothing.

Marco Van Basten & his Ajax boys can celebrate on the latter.

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