Barca advance in Champions League after Bayern tie

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 10:26 PM Posted by Beijing News


French playmaker Franck Ribery ensured Bayern Munich exited the Champions League with at least some dignity as the German giants held Barcelona 1-1 in Tuesday's quarter-final second-leg.

Having come to Munich with a virtually unbeatable 4-0 advantage from the first-leg at the Nou Camp, Barcelona go through 5-1 on aggregate to book their semi-final show-down against Chelsea.

"We are pleased to be in the semi-finals, we still have a lot of games to get through before we can think of Chelsea," said Barcelona coach Josep Guardiola.

"They are a good side, but we need to go and look at the Bayern game first and look at how we played, there are areas to improve."

No side in the competition's history had ever over-turned a four goal deficit and Bayern were always going to need a miracle to reach the last four against Barcelona.

Bayern coach Jurgen Klinsmann was booed by his own fans before kick-off, but this result, on the back of the weekend's 4-0 win over Frankfurt in the German league, will have taken some of the pressure off the ex-Germany coach.

"We wanted an early goal, then anything could have been possible, but we have lacked the little bit of luck," said Klinsmann.

"The team gave a good account of themselves against one of the teams who are favourite to take the Champions League title."

And Bayern players could at least hold their heads high having matched the Spanish.

"We were much better in the personal duels, things were a bit more normal, and we played the way you need to against such a good team," said Germany defender Philipp Lahm.

"But unfortunately we have still lost the tie."

Bayern Munich president Franz Beckenbauer - who was scathing after the first-leg debacle - said the Germans had gone some way to redemption.

"I think the team has rehabilitated itself, although Barcelona's equalising goal was needlessly conceded", said Beckenbauer.

After going close in the first-half, Ribery finally unpicked the Barcelona defence on 47 minutes before Seydou Keita equalised for the Spanish with less than 20 minutes left.

No Spanish side has ever won the treble of league, Kings Cup and Champions League, but Barcelona are on course to take all three titles as Guardiola hopes to lead the Spaniards to a third European title after 1992 and 2006.

A fever removed one of Bayern's chief tormentors from the second leg here as France striker Thierry Henry succumbed to a high temperature, but Guardiola retained a three-prong attack with Andres Iniesta pushed further upfield.

Germany strikers Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose were both ruled out with calf and ankle injuries respectively leaving Italian World Cup winner Luca Toni as the lone forward with Ribery playing just behind him.

Iniesta and Eto'o combined in the Bayern penalty area and Xavi Hernandez pulled a pass back to Keita whose shot gave Butt no chance as it ended honours even.



A view of a mosque in Cairo during sunset. REUTERS/Tarek Mostafa

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