| |
Crunch time Semifinals set in European Cups
Posted: Friday March 19, 1999 11:47 AM
GENEVA (AP) -- Manchester United, hopeful of winning its first European Champions Cup in 31 years will clash in the semifinals next month with Italy's Juventus, finalists the last three seasons in Europe's most prestigious club championship. This will be third time in three seasons that United has come up against Juventus in some stage of the competition. Juventus won twice in 1996-97 and the clubs split two games last season -- United winning 3-2 at home and Juventus 1-0 in Turin. Friday's draw for the semifinals also matched Ukraine's Dynamo Kiev -- probably the surprise of the competition -- against Germany's Bayern Munich, a three-time Champions Cup winner but last a finalist in 1987. Dynamo ousted defending and seven-time champion Real Madrid in Wednesday's second-leg quarterfinals. Manchester United and Dynamo will be home for the first leg April 7 with the return April 21. In the draw for the other two European cups, Atletico Madrid of Spain plays home to Parma of Italy in the first leg of the UEFA Cup, and Marseille is home to Bologna. First leg matches are April 6 followed by the returns April 20. In the Cup Winners' Cup, which will be incorporated next season into the UEFA Cup, defending champion Chelsea is home to Spain's Mallorca in the opening leg and Lokomotiv begins at home against Lazio, the beaten finalist in last season's UEFA Cup. The legs are April 8 and 22. Chelsea is trying to become the first club to win the Cup Winners' Cup in consecutive seaons. "We know Juventus well after playing them recently and we have beaten an Italian team to reach the semifinals, which will give us confidence," said Manchester United's Bobby Charlton. "But at least we have avoided the long journey to the Ukraine." United and Juventus split two matches last season in the Champions League and, like Charlton, Romy Gai, the commercial director of Juventus, seemed pleased to avoid Dynamo. "They [United] are our preferred choice, but it's impossible to be completely optimistic," said Gai, whose club is trying to reach its fifth consecutive European final -- four in the Champions Cup and one in the UEFA Cup. Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld called Dynamo the worst draw his team could get. "They have proved that they deserve to be in the semifinals," Hitzfeld said. "They are of the same quality as Juventus or Manchester." "They [Dynamo] kicked out the defending champion, but in the end it doesn't really matter who you play as long as you reach the final, which is our target," said defender Thomas Strunz. Bayern administrator Karl Hopfner did not seem wild about facing the Ukrainians. "When you get to this stage, there are no easy teams left," he said. "Kiev is a very, very strong team, and we have to remember that it threw out the defending champion." Marseille, the 1993 Champions Cup winner, is trying to reach its first UEFA Cup final. "If you reach the semifinals and you're not optimistic, you shouldn't be there," said Louis Vassallucci, the club secretary general, who said Marseille ws pleased to have drawn Bologna and wanted to avoid Parma. Chelsea's managing director Colin Hutchinson said he was happy to avoid the other Cup Winners' Cup favorite Lazio in the semifinal draw.
| |||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. Terms under which this service is provided to you.
| |||||||||||||||||
