Juventus (2) v (0) Lecce
As many people predicted this match was a walk in the park for the champions in waiting as Juventus strolled past a Lecce side gutted by the fact that they will be playing second division football next season after this, their debut in the top flight. Portuguese attacking midfielder Rui Costa gave Juve an early lead when he put his new side ahead after 11 mins. For all Juve's domination they couldn't find a second by the end of the first period, making it 1-0 at the break. In the second half Juventus started the same as they began the first half with a quick goal. On 51 mins Gustavo Lopez made it 2-0 to Juventus, leaving Lecce on a miserable 10 points and piling the pressure on Porto & Benfica behind them. It also sets Juve up in good style for a potentially dangerous away game against Jon Harris' Panathinaikos next week.
Milan (2) v (2) Real Betis
Most fans of Real Betis will be cursing their luck that it took three quarters of the season for their side to start looking like a 1st division outfit capable of competing with the biggest sides in Europe. Unfortunately, they will have to live with that, but on the evidence of the past three or four weeks, results suggest they could bounce straight back into the top flight. Milan on the other hand have improved over the course of the season, finally fulfilling some of the potential they threatened in their relegation battle of last season. After only 8 mins though it was the Spaniards that had the lead when Savo Milosevic gave them the lead in front of an 85,000+ crowd. However, Milan fan favourite Imre Szabics, who has been in blistering form this season, equalised for the Italians on 29 mins and the score stayed at 1-1 at half time. In the second half it was obvious to all that these two teams were evenly matched, as both sought a route to goal against some well-marshalled defences. With 13 mins remaining it was Betis that took the lead though, for the second time in the match thanks to a goal from Elias Euller. But Milan's response was quick and 5 mins later, with 8 mins remaining, Sebastian Rozenthal made it 2-2 to end the game level.
Panathinaikos (2) v (2) Real Madrid
This was a game between two in-form sides, both battling in the top flight for different reasons at this stage in the campaign. Panathinaikos have come on leaps & bounds since the arrival of manager Jon Harris and with only one league defeat since his appointment as boss, Pana are looking for a finish in the top half of the table. Real Madrid on the other hand are forcing the likes of current champions Internazionale to play catch up, while putting pressure on the Portuguese & Italians ahead of them, thanks to the managerial skills of Rob Perini. The game took a while to burst into action, but it did so on 31 mins thanks to one of Panathinaikos' form players right now, Darius Vassell. Vassell's strike was all that separated the sides at the break and it wasn't until 20 mins from time that a net was bursting again. This time it was another Pana star that scored, when Helgi Sigurdsson doubled the home teams advantage. What followed then was, what can only be described as, "a spirited comeback". Five mins after going behind 2-0 Ariel Ortega brought Real back into the match. The little Argentine seems to be enjoying his switch from champions Inter. Then, with 9 mins left, Miguel Angel Benitez, another of the Perini revolution, made it 2-2 ending a classic comeback.
Internazionale (1) v (2) Porto
If there were ever an example of the gulf separating the Milan giants these days, this was it. The previous day Milan managed to tempt 85,000 to watch their match with 10th place Real Betis. Not a small crowd by any manor of means. Twenty four hours later and the champions had the San Siro packed to the rafters as a capacity crowd watched their side's most important game of the season to date, against old rivals, unfold before their eyes. However, no one would have thought that Lady Luck could be so cruel and then so kind in the space of 90 mins. To use an old cliche, this really was "a game of two halves". In the first half it was all about Porto and the fact that Lady Luck had deigned to smile upon the championship challengers early on. On 13 mins the prolific Spanish goal scoring sensation Raul, gave Porto the lead, but on 23 mins the 150,000 crowd were on their feet thanks in part, to Raul again. As he headed into the box with the ball ready to leave his lethal foot, Argentine living legend Gabriele Batistuta unfairly (in the eyes of probably just the referee) knocked the Porto hitman off the ball, conceding a penalty. Young up and coming Argentine striker Fernando Cavenaghi stepped up to take the penalty in the San Siro cauldron and converted successfully to make it a surprising 0-2 to Porto at the interval. In the second half, after Porto had dominated the first half, Inter went on to bombard the Porto goal. Luck more than design kept the reigning champions at bay, but on 73 mins they got a breakthrough when Ivan De La Pena made it 1-2. Inter continued to pound away at Porto's final third and with just 4 mins to go Lady Luck turned her back on Internazionale. Experienced winger Finidi George dribbled his way into the Porto penalty area, breezing past both Hurtado & Hofland before rifling off a thunderous shot, beating Rustu Recber in the Porto goal, but almost snapping the crossbar in two, as it rebounded of the woodwork and out for a throw-in. That was Inter's last chance in the match and in the end, luck favoured Porto, who left Italy with their title hopes intact.....just.
AS Roma (2) v (1) Valencia
Ali Rea's Roma are determined to finish in the top half of the table in their return to the top flight and this result, coupled with a return to form in general over recent weeks may just see them do it. Valencia on the other hand, knowing they are in division two next season are not winning back any fans as they continue to show some very poor form on their way down. It will be a brave manager that takes on the side that has become Southern Europe's poisoned chalice after this season. For Roma, the day belonged to their recent signing, Swiss modern day legend Stephane Chapuisat. After 7 mins he had endeared himself to the home crowd by giving Roma the lead. Then on 24 mins, he settled the game for Roma by adding his and Roma's second goal of the day, making it 2-0 at the interval. In the second half Mario Haas made it 2-1 on the hour mark to give his side some hope, but rather than rally behind this strike, Valencia were pushed back by a dangerous Roma, who almost added to their two goals, but in the end, were content to see it end 2-1.
Benfica (3) v (3) Barcelona
It seems that every now and then Southern Europe's top division throws up a classic game. This was one such match. Benfica have done so well in recent weeks by managing to draw level on points with 2nd place Porto before this match, while at the same time, giving Juventus a serious challenge in the race for the title. Barcelona have also been in exceptional form lately. This match rekindled memories of the Barcelona glory days under the leadership of previous manager Wes Hutton. Current boss Marc Ritchie has had a teething period of three quarters of a season and taken heavy criticism by fans and media alike, especially with the sale of high earners; the likes of Michael Owen & Ronaldo. His current squad & Gary Hargreaves Benfica are renowned for being difficult to beat and neither had the upper hand in this match. The home side, in front of 144,000+ fans had a fantastic start. First, the in-form Marcelo Otero gave Benfica the lead on 9 mins, then on 15 mins, Europe's top scorer Rivaldo, made it 2-0, stunning the Barcelona camp. However, the star of the day was to appear on 29 mins and rescue Barcelona. Christian Vieri, an inspired signing by Ritchie scored his first of a hat-trick to make it 2-1 at half time. In the second half, Vieri took just 9 mins to make the game level at 2-2, scoring his second on the day. For Barcelona, the comeback was complete, but they weren't finished there and neither was Vieri and on 63 mins he completed an historic hat-trick to win over the Barcelona faithful and put his side ahead for the first time in the match. Benfica haven't been challenging for the championship this season by lying down though and they fought back in style. On 74 mins, Otero bagged his brace for the day to make it 3-3, which prompted an end to end finish, but both sides couldn't find the winner, ending the game level.
Top Scorers
1st. 27 - Rivaldo of Benfica
2nd. 27 - Raul of Porto
3rd. 26 - Henry of Bordeaux
4th. 24 - Wiltord of Chelsea
5th. 23 - Sand of AS Monaco
6th. 22 - Saviola of Bristol City
7th. 22 - Suker of Everton
8th. 21 - Overmars of Barcelona
9th. 20 - Salas of IFK Gothenborg
10th. 20 - Totti of Real Madrid
11th. 20 - Otero of Benfica
12th. 19 - Edmundo of Lazio
13th. 18 - Ravanelli of Oxford Utd
14th. 18 - Pimenov of IFK Gothenborg
15th. 17 - Kluivert of Juventus
In front of a whopping 150,000 capacity crowd in the Das Antas stadium, Porto & Benfica met in the 2nd leg of this season's hotly contested European Cup Final. With the eyes of the world homing in on Portugal, both managers made changes to their starting line-ups. Benfica boss Gary Hargreaves went with five at the back to hopefully nullify the threat posed by Raul & Cavenaghi and Porto boss Paul Anderson welcomed back Argentine full back and fan favourite Hugo Ibarra.
With Porto leading the first leg (2) v (1) on aggregate, the teams for the second leg lined up as follows:
Benfica
Goalkeeper - Santiago Canizares
Defence - Ozat Umit, Alan Wright, Alain Goma, Gustavo Nery & Emmanuel Atangana
Midfield/Wide Men - Josep Guardiola, Rivaldo & Marcelo Zalayeta
Forwards - Marcelo Otero & Pierre Van Hooijdonk
Porto
Goalkeeper - Rustu Recber
Defence - Hugo Ibarra, Jose Antonio Chamot, Ivan Hurtado & Kevin Hofland
Midfield/Wide Men - Menegazzo Fernando, Nuno Capucho, Peter Lovenkrands & Delron Buckley
Forwards - Raul & Fernando Cavenaghi
The second leg started much the same as the first leg, but this time it was Porto that scored first. On 11 mins Buckley played an inch-perfect pass along the line to Fernando and the Brazilian fired in a cross from the right touch line for Raul to contest in the box. Why Raul was being man marked by Hooijdonk was anybody's guess and with five at the back Benfica boss Gary Hargreaves must have been raging to see his centre forward in his own penalty box challenging Raul. However, Raul beat the Dutchman to the ball, just managing to get a enough on the ball off his head to direct the ball toward goal. The pace of the shot had been in the cross and Raul had touched it just enough. The ball flew past Canizares to strike the top corner of the net and give Porto the lead, 1-0 on the night and 3-1 on aggregate.
Eleven mins later, with the Porto fans in full voice, Hooijdonk made up for his marking at the first goal to contribute to one of the goals of the season. He collected the ball in the centre circle from an Atangana short pass and drove into space with no Porto player willing to close him down. By the time Ivan Hurtado had came out to close down Hooijdonk, he had almost made it to the by-line. The Dutch striker looked up, saw Otero making a run to the near post and crossed, clearing Hurtado. Otero met the ball, not with a shot from his head as everyone expected as the ball was head height, but chested it down with Hofland snapping at his heals. The big Uruguayan then played a silky back heel to his left, too fast for Hofland to react and while off balance, met the ball full on with his right foot. Recber stood motionless in the Porto goal as the ball almost burst through the roof of the net, while Otero proceeded to celebrate with his Benfica team mates; 1-1 and 3-2 on aggregate. Benfica were back in the tie!
What followed then must have left everyone associated with Benfica totally gutted as Porto restored their advantage while catching their opponents napping just 3 mins after Benfica had equalised. A classic Porto move occured when Ozat Umit crossed into the Porto box only for Raul to clear to the feet of Peter Lovenkrands on the left and the Danish winger bolted up the wing with acres of space ahead of him and the Benfica players racing to get back into position after the breakdown of their attack. Lovenkrands though was too quick and reached the by-line before putting a telling cross right into the path of Cavenaghi, who had somehow managed to keep up with the flying Dane. So too though had Atangana and he was inches from clearing the cross, but it skidded past him and found Cavenaghi, who took one touch to send Goma sprawling and another to send the ball past Canizares. Even though Canizares got a finger to it, the power in the shot was too much and Porto went up 2-1 and 4-2 on aggregate with 25 mins gone.
It took a while before any more incidents of note happened in the game, but on 39 mins, Rivaldo was involved for all the wrong reasons. Zalayeta managed to beat Ibarra to the ball along the line and cross a beautiful ball into the box. Rivaldo & Chamot both challenged for it in the air and Chamot cleared cleanly. Rivaldo though went down under the challenge, holding his face as he fell. At first glance the crowd were convinced that the Brazilian had been elbowed and a penalty was about to come as the Das Antas erupted. However, the ref waved play on and on the evidence of the television replay, he was correct, as the cameras showed Rivaldo made no contact with Chamot at all, let alone his elbow. That brought the first half to a close with the score at 2-1 to Porto and 4-2 on aggregate.
If the first half ended in controversy and talking points, the second half began alike. On 58 mins Rivaldo was at the centre of a storm again, as Hugo Ibarra almost incited the fans to riot. Obviously the Argentine full back had decided he didn't take kindly to Rivaldo's play acting in the first half and came from one side of the pitch to the next and challenged Rivaldo halfway up his body with a lunge that reflected a rugby challenge more than a slide tackle. Rivaldo wasn't acting this time and as he writhed in agony next to the advertising boards Ibarra started to head for the showers, even before the referee showed his departing figure the red card. Porto reduced to 10 men with half an hour still to play.
For the remainder of the match, Porto didn't fashion any kind of offence as manager Paul Anderson decided that his team would sit on their two goal aggregate cushion, somewhat dangerously.
Rushfeldt replaced Pierre Van Hooijdonk on 60 mins as he had in the first leg. Three mins after this Capucho was caught in possession in the centre circle when Otero came through the back of him. The referee waved play on with the jeers of the Porto fans ringing around the ground and Otero played it on to Guardiola. Guardiola then played it wide left to Zalayeta and he used Rushfeldt to play a neat one-two to go round Fernando, but as he played it through for the advancing Ozat Umit, Hofland stepped up to catch the Turk a yard offside and leave Benfica to start again.
On 70 mins Harry Kewell made his debut for Porto when replacing Delron Buckley, but he became a defender more than a winger and on 75 mins, Porto were pegged back again. Otero dropped deep and collected the ball from defence before turning and picking out his strike partner Rushfeldt. He in turn picked out Zalayeta with ease. The winger came bombing in on Recber's six-yard box , out-pacing Hofland and meeting the ball in his stride. A tremendous leap and fingertip save by Recber saw the ball sail over the crossbar and Benfica won a corner. The corner was taken by Zalayeta himself, but just when a decent delivery was required, the winger sent it straight into the arms of Recber.
As time ran out for Benfica, boss Gary Hargreaves replaced Atangana with Vastic and Otero with Ilie, again going with three up front. Paul Anderson then sent on Vladimir Ivic to replace Fernando & Pena to relieve the hard working Raul. Eventually, Benfica got what they deserved. With a minute remaining of normal time Zalayeta intercepted an under hit pass between Hofland & Ivic and he was bearing down on the Porto goal. In seconds he had the ball tearing into the Porto area. Vastic threw caution to the wind and dived in front of Hurtado as he came in at the near post. The ball met Vastic's boot cleanly and went up and over the front post dive of Recber to hit the under side of the bar and bounce down to nestle in the bottom of the goal mouth as Benfica made it 2-2 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate.
With 4 mins of injury time remaining Porto had every man back in their own half defending cross after cross from Benfica as they sought out the goal that would win them the European Cup on away goals. However, Porto dealt admirably with all that came to them and the final whistle sounded in the Das Antas stadium as one half of Portugal's 'Big Two' erupted into celebrations as they captured their first European Cup in a memorable two-legged final affair.
Ratings & Stats:
Benfica
8* - Canizares
8* - Umit
8* - Wright
8* - Nery
8* - Goma
7* - Atangana
8* - Guardiola
9* - Rivaldo
8* - Zalayeta
9* - Otero
9* - Hooijdonk
Porto
8* - Recber
9* - Ibarra
8* - Chamot
8* - Hurtado
8* - Hofland
9* - Fernando
8* - Capucho
9* - Lovenkrands
9* - Buckley
9* - Raul
8* - Cavenaghi
Scorers
(11) Raul
(22) Otero
(25) Cavenaghi
(89) Vastic
Possession - Porto (53%) Benfica (47%)
Man of the Match - Menegazzo Fernando (Porto)
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2nd. 39 pts, GD +15 - Porto
3rd. 37 pts, GD +14 - Benfica
4th. 33 pts, GD +1 - Real Nadrid
5th. 31 pts, GD +7 - Internazionale (Champions)
6th. 28 pts, GD +5 - AS Roma
7th. 28 pts, GD +3 - Milan
8th. 24 pts, GD -2 - Panathinaikos
9th. 23 pts, GD -2 - Barcelona
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10th. 13 pts, GD -12 - Real Betis
11th. 10 pts, GD -17 - Lecce
12th. 8 pts, GD -25 - Valencia
2nd. 40 pts, GD +9 - Ath Madrid
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3rd. 38 pts, GD +12 - Celta Vigo
4th. 37 pts, GD +9 - Deportivo
5th. 34 pts, GD +7 - Lazio
6th. 24 pts, GD -5 - Boavista
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7th. 23 pts, GD -4 - Alaves
8th. 21 pts, GD -5 - Real Sociedad
9th. 20 pts, GD -5 - Galatasaray
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10th. 19 pts, GD -15 - Sampdoria
11th. 16 pts, GD -5 - Bologna
12th. 11 pts, GD -17 - Espanyol
2nd. 41 pts, GD +13 - Perugia
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3rd. 35 pts, GD +10 - Atlanta
4th. 34 pts, GD +3 - Parma
5th. 30 pts, GD +2 - Spt Lisbon
6th. 24 pts, GD +2 - Bari
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7th. 22 pts, GD -1 - Olympiakos
8th. 21 pts, GD -6 - Fiorentina
9th. 19 pts, GD -9 - Real Zaragoza
10th. 17 pts, GD -8 - Napoli
11th. 17 pts, GD -9 - Athletico Bilboa
12th. 13 pts, GD -11 - Torino