Atletico Madrid banned for 2 games in Europe

Spanish club,Atletico Madrid has been ordered by UEFA to play their next two games away from Madrid in the Champions League.

This also included the visit of Liverpool and the return of Fernando Torres to Vicente Calderon.

Along with the 2 game ban to play their next games 300kms away from Madrid,they were fined 150,000 euros.

The reason for this ban is the crowd trouble and racist abuse in their game against Marseille.

Undoubtedly so, Atletico will challenge the ruling and claim to have the backing of the Spanish Football Federation.

They also face the possibility of losing out on a third game if there is any more trouble at Vicente Calderon during the next 5 years.

This is the hardest punishment given to a club in Europe for racist behaviour.

---

Subscribe to 90 Minutes on the Pitch!

VIDEO : Amazing skills by a kid

Here is a video depicting the huge amounts of talent that is there in youngsters of today.This comes from a kid in France who is all of 6yrs old.

I hope to see this kid being inducted at some huge clubs' soccer school soon.

Clip Courtesy : MightyFootball

Enjoy!

---

Subscribe to 90 Minutes on the Pitch!

Joe Kinnear doesn't get a good start

Just when you thought Newcastle United could not get any worse and sink into further problems,here comes the shocker courtesy The Guardian.

The press' interaction with the new manager Joe Kinnear and his oh so not humble remarks did not win him any friends.

Read the transcript below.

WARNING:THE FOLLOWING TEXT CONTAINS PROFANITY.READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Read the whole transcript

---

Subscribe to 90 Minutes on the Pitch!

Bayern Munich linked to UEFA Cup Match Fixing

As per a Spanish daily,El Pais the second leg of the semifinal contested between Bayern Munich and Zenith St Petersburg was fixed.

Zenith had won that game 4-0 after both teams drew 1-1 in Munich.They went on to win the tournament as well.

The paper goes on to say that a Spanish judge has sent two tapes of Russian mobsters who were behind the alleged match fixing scenario.The first, from rumored Russian gang member Gennady Petrov, mentions paying 50 million of unpaid currency to Bayern. The second, from Petrov’s aide, states the 4-0 Zenit scoreline before the match took place.

Source : Sports Illustrated CNN

---

Subscribe to 90 Minutes on the Pitch!

UEFA Cup : Results

Selective Results from UEFA Cup 2nd legs.Brackets indicate aggregate scores.Winning teams are bolden.

Wisla Krakow 1 - 1 Spurs (2-3)

Rapid Bucharest 1 - 1 Wolfsburg (1-2)

Kaunas 1 - 2 Sampdoria (1-7)

Spartak Moscow 1 - 1 Ostrava (2-1)

Unirea Urziceni 0 - 2 Hamburg (0-2)

Schalke 1 - 1 APOEL FC (5-2)

Stuttgart 2 - 2 Cherno More Varna (4-3)

Honka 0 - 1 Racing Santander (0-2)

Kalmar 1 - 2 Feynoord (2-2) [away goal rule applied]

Galatasaray 2 - 1 Bellinzona (6-4)

Partisan Belgrade 1 - 0 Poli Timisoara (3-1)

Standard Liege 2 - 1 Everton (4-3)

FC Twente 1 - 0 Rennes (2-2) [away goal rule applied]

SC Heerenveen 5 - 2 Vitoria Setubal (6-3)

Sparta Prague 3 - 3 Dinamo Zagreb (3-3) [away goal rule applied]

Zurich 0 - 1 AC Milan (1-4)

Ajax 2 - 0 Borac C. (6-1)

SV Salzburg 0 - 2 Sevilla (0-4)

Manchester City 2 - 1 Omonia Nicosia (4-2)

Motherwell 0 - 2 Nancy (0-3)

Udinese 0 - 2 Borussia Dortmund (2-2) [4-3 on penalties to Udinese]

Aston Villa 1 - 1 Litex Lovech (4-2)

Deportivo La Coruna 2 - 0 Brann Bergen (2-2) [3-2 on penalties to Deportivo La Coruna]

Paris Saint Germain 0 - 0 Kayserispor (2-1)

Benfica 2 - 0 Napoli (4-3)

Valencia 2 - 1 Martimo (3-1)

Vitoria Guimaraes 2 - 2 Portsmouth (2-4) [after extra time]

---

Subscribe to 90 Minutes on the Pitch!

Champions League : Matchday 2 : Wednesday

10 pointer from the second day of Matchday 2 played on 1-10.

1.Chelsea have Didier Drogba sidelined due to a knee injury and although it looked bad for the Ivorian and for Chelsea who would have problems upfront,its come as a respite that he would face only a short spell on the sidelines.

2.Roma were lucky to get three points with a brace from "The Beast" Baptista.However the Italian side were criticized for their "experience" to get Bordeaux defender Henrique as per the French sides' manager Laurent Blanc.

3.Anorthosis Famagusta(mouthful!) became the first Cypriot side to win in the Champions League.They beat Greek club Panathinaikos 3-1.

4.Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan had a blip at home when they drew with Werder Bremen in their own courtyard.The scorer for Bremen was Pizzaro who had scored for his then club Bayern Munich in the 2006/07 season at the same stage.Materazzi faces a minimum of two weeks absenteeism after pulling a muscle in his right thigh.

5.Sporting Lisbon saw off Swiss side Basel as they ran away 2-0 winners at home.

6.Barcelona scored in the 94th minute to snatch 3 points from Shakhtar Donetsk.Messi scored a double for them after sloppy keeping for the Catalan's first and defensive break away for the second.The first goal however was highly contested by Ukranian sides' players who hadn't expected the play to be continued after their player fell to the ground and ball was kicked out.Although there was no reason to contest because the player had got up and there was a goalkeeping shocker by Pyatov.

7.Robbie Keane scored his first goal for Liverpool.The club he loved as a little boy in Ireland and dreamt of scoring for.He finally achieved that.Although not a clear strike but he would take it am sure.

8.Stevie G scored his 100th for Liverpool and to add to the five stars for the Englishman was that the goal was a fabulous free kick and the goal was scored at the Kop end.What could be better?

9.Atletico Madrid completed the four wins out of four for Spanish clubs on Matchday 2.Marseille did however manage one to make the final 68 minutes very interesting as the three goals came in the first 22minutes!Aguero Atletico's star player is one to look for.Sheer class!

10.Four wins out of four for Spanish Clubs.Are we in for a Spanish dominance after the English dominance last year?

---

Subscribe to 90 Minutes on the Pitch!

Champions League : Match Day 2 : Tuesday

Scores from Match Day 2 action on Tuesday (30/09)

Aalborg BK 0 - 3 Manchester United
Rooney 22'
Berbatov 55'
Berbatov 79'

Manchester United's new last day signing Dimitar Berbatov finally struck his first goal for his new side.Two goals from the Bulgarian and Rooney's low strike removed the memories of a shaky performance two weeks back by the defending champions against Villareal.

Manchester United however have their concerns coming out of the win too.Scholes was taken off on the stretcher and Rooney limped off in the second half.News reports say Scholes would be out for upto eight weeks due to a knee injury.

Villareal 1 - 0 Celtic
Senna 67'

Villareal continued to showcase the performance that has been keeping them on the top of the La Liga now in the Champions League.Celtic as again failed to win on the road.

The only goal of the game came courtesy Marcos Senna's free kick which the keeper wasn't able to stop.

Bayern Munich 1 - 1 Lyon

Demichelis (o.g.) 25'
Ze Roberto 52'

German Champions Bayern Munich continued their unbeaten ways in the Champions League despite turmoils in their domestic campaign.Lyon also were able to manage the same feat as both sides drew 1-1 at the Allianz Arena.

Demichelis inadvertently put Juninho's long range free kick on his own net to give visiting team the lead.

Bayern equalised 7minutes into the second half courtesy a thumping header by Brazilian Ze Roberto past Lloris.

Fiorentina 0 - 0 Steaua Bucharest

In a disappointing game for the Italians who tried their best they couldn't put the ball in the back of the net and had to share the spoils with the Romanian side.

This leaves Fiorentina with 2 points from as many games and Bucharest won their first point of the season.

Arsenal 4 - 0 Porto

Van Persie 31'
Adebayor 40'
Van Persie 48'
Adebayor(pen.) 71'

Arsenal showed their resilience as a footballing side after their shock loss at the hands of Hull City over the weekend at the Emirates Stadium.

Gunners have a fabulous record in the Champions League at home with no losses since its inauguration last season.

Arsenal were in the mood to continue their record and send out a message to Premiership title hopefuls that they have their bad days and Saturday was one of them.

Robbie Van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor scored two goals each to give Arsenal a well deserved victory.Arsenal could have scored many more with many chances being created by Walcott and for him as well.The game also saw the return of Nasri after a 5 game injury lay-off.

Porto on the other hand looked to be in an attacking mood when the game was evenly poised at 0-0 but didn't bother Almunia much after Arsenal scored.Portuguese giants would be sick of coming to England after 5th defeat in 5 years and the biggest loss in 11 years in the competition.

Fenerbahce 0 - 0 Dynamo Kiev

Fenerbahce's impressive run of eight consecutive European home wins came to an end after Ukranian side stopped the Turkish sides' dominance at home.This earned Kiev their second draw in their second game.

Fenerbahce earned their first point in the competition in the process after their loss at Porto on Match Day 1.They would look for a better performance in front of goal when they face Arsenal next.

Zenith St Petersburg 1 - 2 Real Madrid
Hubocan (o.g.) 4'
Danny 25'
Van Nistelrooy 31'

Real Madrid sent out a strong message to other European contenders and pundits after their slender victory in St. Petersburg.

Like all games taking place in Russia this one took off early and an own goal by Hubocan helped the 9 time Champions League winners to take a 1-0 lead.

Zenith equalised soon afterwards as Arshavin's cross was met by Danny who put the ball behind Casillas as a despairing header came from the defender on a very low cross.

Van Nistelrooy got Real Madrid back on track after he was on the end of a deflection by the defender to strike it in the home sides' goal.

Thereafter it was all for Madrid to defend who were helped by Casilla's keeping,the woodwork and the defensive numbers to get their act together.

Bate Borisov 2 - 2 Juventus
Kryvets 17'
Stasevich 23'
Iaquinta 29'
Iaquinta 45'


FC Bate's dream home start to the Champions League were cut short by the Old Lady of Italian Football.

Kryvets and Stasevich provided the dream start to the Belarussian side inside the first 23minutes.

The dream however didn't last long as Iaquinta's double before halftime brought them back on their feet and out of dream land.Iaquinta who had come in for David Trezeguet didn't disappoint manager Claudio Ranieri.

This result leaves Juventus in the second spot of Group H behind Real Madrid with four points.

---

Subscribe to 90 Minutes on the Pitch!