SPURS ACCEPT BYE, BLACKBURN AND RANGERS FACE CHALLENGE, GEORDIES LOOK SORTED!

 

 

Well European football's back till the end of the season and from here on in in both the Champions League and UEFA Cup it's sudden death and theoretically no easy matches. The Champions League doesn't start till next week. The UEFA Cup starts this week purely due to the fact that the sharp end of the competition starts with 32 teams rather than 16, therefore a more intense burst of games for those involved, which this year include three English sides and one Scottish team.

Well that's the theory at least. What had looked like the tastiest tie of the round involving a British club was the tie between Spurs and Feyenoord, with the first leg due at De Kuip. There was no action there this week though, Feyenoord hooligans caused trouble during the group stages and so UEFA decided to throw them out of the competition. Technically that's football's loss but it left UEFA with two options as to what to do with Spurs. Throw Wislaw Krakow a lifeline or give Spurs a bye to the 2nd knockout round. Spurs got the bye.

So that left the main match worth watching in the 1st knockout round to be Blackburn's visit to Bayer Leverkusen in the BayArena. Jan-Inger Callsen-Bracker opened the scoring for the German side and though David Bentley soon equalised, goals from Carston Ramelow and Bernd Schnieder, finished Schnieder finished Rovers off on the night. Shabani Nonda did pull one back late on though, which was enough for Rovers to be back in the mixer for the second leg.

By far the easiest task of any of the British sides fell to Newcastle. Some Belgian bunch called Zulte Waregem. The first leg was at the Regenboog Stadion and though the Geordies had the edge, the first half was goalless. They opened the scoring early on in the second half through an own goal from Frederic Dindeleux. Obafeme Martins made it two with a penalty and though the home side got their hopes up after Karek D'Haene pulled one back, Antoine Sibierski's late strike pretty much finished the tie off.

Rangers are also still standing and they wound up facing Hapoel Tel Aviv with the first leg at the Bloomfield Stadium. The Israeli side opened the scoring thanks to Salim Toama only for the Gers to equalise after a strike by Nacho Novo. However Baruch Drago hit the winning for Hapoel on the night though Walter Smith shouldn't be giving up quite yet, even if the first European game he's been involved in since the 90s did end in Rangers' first defeat in the UEFA Cup this season.

Back home, the main event were the FA Cup 4th round replays. The 'mugs of the round' award wound up going completely unclaimed though which left the main mach worth talking about to be the one all-Premiership tie of the three replays. Bolton vs Arsenal at the Reebok Stadium. Emmanuel Adebayor opened the scoring for the Gunners who really should have finished off the home side in the second half but instead Abdoulaye Meite was able to force extra time. Freddie Ljungburg managed to restore the Gunners lead though and Adebayor finished Bolton off.

And now it's the fifth round on the weekend.

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