46 Friday Sports Friday, March 29, 2019 Chelsea snatch PSG triumph to set up semi-final showdown with Lyon Barcelona ease into semi-final clash with Bayern Munich PARIS: Maren Mjelde fired Chelsea into the last “I’m so disappointed for my team, so much four of the Women’s Champions League and a effort completely wiped out by a moment of clash with all-conquering Lyon after her stop- carelessness. I am disappointed for them be- page time strike saw them squeeze past Paris cause they gave everything,” said PSG coach Saint-Germain 3-2 on aggregate on Wednesday. Olivier Echouafni. Elsewhere, Barcelona eased into a semi-final clash with Bayern Munich thanks to Lieke SOMMER’S NIGHT Martens’ seventh-minute strike that sealed a 4- Reynald Pedros’s Lyon kept up their hunt for 0 aggregate win for the Catalans over Lillestrom a fourth straight Women’s Champions League SK. Bayern comfortably progressed after a 5-1 after Eugenie Le Sommer’s brace won a thrilling thumping of Slavia Prague that gave the Ger- encounter with Wolfsburg 4-2 and knock the mans a 6-2 overall victory. German side out for the fourth year in a row. Norway international Mjelde met Karen Car- France forward Le Sommer struck in the 60th ney’s pinpoint pass seconds into added time to and 80th minutes to send Lyon into the last four snatch the tie and spark wild celebrations after 6-3 on aggregate after Denmark striker Pernille the Blues let their 2-0 first-leg advantage slip Harder clawed dogged Wolfsburg back from an and risked being dumped out by a powerful PSG early 2-0 deficit with two goals in three second- performance. half minutes. Her late strike was enough for Emma Hayes’s Lyon, ahead 2-1 from the first leg in France, side to go through despite losing 2-1 on the looked set to cruise through following a cheeky night and being completely outplayed by PSG. eighth-minute free-kick from Dzsenifer The Parisiens were all over Chelsea in a domi- Marozsan and France captain Wendy Renard’s nant second-half display, and levelled the tie penalty 17 minutes later. through Marie-Antoinette Katoto two minutes Harder drew Wolfsburg-who lost the 2016 after the break and a comical own goal from and 2018 finals to Lyon-level on the night with Blues keeper Ann-Katrin Berger. two quickfire strikes in the 53rd and 56th min- Roared on by a passionate home crowd led utes to leave them needing to score twice more by a hardcore ultras group who protested treat- without reply to progress. ment they received by police at the first leg in However Le Sommer killed any hopes of what England-when fans were caught with weapons would have been an incredible aggregate come- and drugs-the hosts looked favourites as the tie back when she headed Lyon back in front on the headed towards extra time, but Mjelde nipped hour mark, and 20 minutes later she guided Del- PARIS: Paris Saint-Germain’s Canadian defender Ashley Lawrence (R) vies for the ball with Chelsea’s in to slot past Christiane Endler and book a huge phine Cascarino’s cross past Almuth Schult and English defender Millie Bright during the UEFA Women’s Champions League quarter final second Leg tie with European champions Lyon. ended the match as a contest.—AFP football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea at the Jean Bouin stadium in Paris. — AFP Robben gives up hope of Africa football spreads its wings a return against Dortmund by staging Super Cup in Qatar BERLIN: Bayern Munich’s veteran Dutch winger Arjen Robben DOHA: A 20,000-seat stadium in Qatar capital Doha will be Tunisia, but in Doha he may have to settle for a place on the has admitted he is unlikely to make a fairy-tale return from injury the unlikely setting today for the CAF Super Cup showdown be- bench, as he has done in recent Champions League matches. in the Bundesliga club’s top-of-the-table clash against Borussia tween Esperance of Tunisia and Raja Casablanca of Morocco. Like virtually all successful African clubs, Esperance rely on Dortmund next week. The annual one-off match pits the winners of the CAF Cham- a mix of local and foreign talent to ensure a steady flow of titles. Robben, 35, has been out of action for several months and is pions League and second-tier CAF Confederation Cup against Apart from numerous Tunisian stars, coach Moine Chaabani can set to leave Bayern after a decade of service at the end of this each other and has been staged in Africa since its 1993 debut. call on Cameroonian Franck Kom, Ivorian Fousseny Coulibaly, season. An iconic figure at the club, he had hoped to return to But CAF, the Cairo-based governing body of African football, Algerian Youcef Belaili and Libyan Hamdou Elhouni. fitness in time for the Dortmund game, but now appears to have announced last year that the match would be hosted by Doha Esperance travelled to Doha in good form after completing given up on the idea. without offering an explanation. the group stage of their Champions League title defence un- “I still don’t know whether I will be fit, we will have to see, Qatar will stage the 2022 World Cup-the first Middle East beaten having won four matches and drawn two. but I think it is probably unrealistic,” Robben told Munich nation awarded the rights to host the biggest single-sport global Raja have been less successful lately, failing to qualify for the newspaper Abendzeitung at a charity run in central Munich on tournament. The small nation with huge oil and gas reserves quarter-finals of the Confederation Cup they won so impres- Wednesday evening. “I am on the road to recovery, but I am will go into the World Cup as Asian champions having defeated sively last season. not yet training with the team,” he said. “I think it will take a bit Japan 3-1 in the final in Abu Dhabi last month. The Casablanca outfit won only one of six group matches, more time. All I can do is keep working hard and fighting to get Qatar Football Association officials are hopeful of a big and the 4-1 thrashing of AS Otoho Oyo in Congo Brazzaville back on the pitch.” crowd for the Super Cup match, noting in a statement that Es- came too late to salvage a disappointing mini-league campaign. Robben’s last appearance for Bayern was in a 5-1 Champions perance and Raja have large followings in the Gulf state. A team coached by Frenchman Patrice Carteron lie third in League win over Benfica on November 27. Since then, he has Esperance and Raja are among the giants of African football, the domestic league, but are 17 points adrift of bitter rivala struggled with a thigh injury and ongoing muscular issues. He winning six CAF titles apiece, including the most prestigious, Wydad Casablanca entering the final third of the season. was expected to return to full fitness after Bayern’s winter train- the Champions League, three times each. Although Tunisia and Moroccan clubs are among the ing camp in Doha in January, but nearly three months on, he is A dramatic second leg comeback in the 2018 Champions strongest in Africa, neither country has been particularly suc- still out of action. In his 10 years at the club, Robben has become League final brought glory to Esperance as they trounced Al cessful in the Super Cup. Tunisian clubs have won three matches a Bayern legend, scoring 143 goals in 305 appearances and win- Ahly of Egypt 3-0 having trailed by two goals after the first leg. and lost eight and those from Morocco have also triumphed ning 11 domestic titles. His finest moment came at Wembley in Saad Bguir was the two-goal star of the return match in three times while failing five times. — AFP 2013, when he fired Bayern to victory in the Champions League final with an 89th minute winner against Dortmund. —AFP.