10 November 2008

Euro-rivals: Happy weekend only for Real

Just a few days after the 4th day of the Champions League group stage and with the next set of matches on the 26th of November, the teams in Group H were busy with there national championships.

Whilst in Italy and Spain the championship is just half way through the first round, in Bielorussia and Russia the end of the tournaments is drawing near, however little is left to see with the titles already won.

Bate Borisov, who have already been crowned champions, lost to Dinamo Minsk, the team second in the table. The final result was that of 2-1 with a goal scored by Rodinov. Next week sees the last match of the championship. Bate will have to play two games during the week as it must still play against Savit on Wednesday which match had been postponed.

With regards to Zenit, which on Wednesday managed to re-open their chances to qualify for the Champions League, the championship is though. With the 1-1 against Amkar (penalty scored by Tymoschuk) they have once again made their chances to qualify for the preliminaries very difficult. With two days to go the Russians are fifth with a 5 point margin from the Moscow-couple CSKA and Dinamo, at the moment in second place and distant from the new Russian champions Rubin Kazan.

Apart from the success of Juventus at Verona, the only other victory in the weekend is that of Real Madrid. Schuster’s team beat Malaga in an exciting match with the final score being 4-3. The match made history as Higuain scored all four of Real’s goals. The Merengues are third in the table at the moment together with Valencia. Barcellona lead with 25 points while Villareal are second with 24.