English clubs triumph in European soccer’s year of shocking rallies
This was a year of unprecedented English domination of European club competition as the Premier League finally turned its financial power into results on the field, but 2019 will be best remembered for a series of stunning comebacks.
For the first time, all four finalists in Europe’s two club competitions came from the same country with Liverpool beating Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League final and Chelsea defeating Arsenal for the Europa League title.
In women’s football, the World Cup brought unprecedented interest to the tournament with the United States defending its title by beating the Netherlands 2-0 in the final in Lyon, France. Interest in the women’s game has arguably never been higher with broadcast records broken all over the globe in the June-july showcase.
Olympique Lyonnais continued its domination of the women’s European club game — a 4-1 win over Barcelona in Budapest, ensuring a fourth straight Champions League title.
In the men’s Champions League, the knockout stage delivered plenty of drama.
Manchester United produced one of the great comebacks, when under new manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer it went into its roundof-16 second leg at Paris Saint- Germain, having suffered a seemingly deadly 2-0 reverse at Old Trafford. Yet a stoppage-time penalty from Marcus Rashford gave it a 3-1 win at the Parc de Princes and an aggregate victory on away goals.
Never in 106 attempts in Europe’s top club competition had a team progressed in a knockout tie after a 2-0 home defeat. It will go down as one of United’s great nights despite it being eliminated by Barcelona in the quarter-final, which produced more drama with the video assistant referee controversy, as Manchester City was eliminated by Tottenham on away goals after the tie ended 4-4. A late goal from Raheem Sterling looked to have sealed City’s progress and sent manager Pep Guardiola racing up and down the touchline, leaping into the air in wild jubilation.
City’s celebrating fans thought their outlandish dream of quadruple titles was still very much alive.
Then — as Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir signalled the goal had been disallowed for an offside following video review — Guardiola fell to his knees in utter despair.
Yet even that night of drama was overshadowed by what followed in the last four. Liverpool was presumed dead and buried after losing 3-0 to Barcelona, but then at Anfield it was simply unstoppable as it swept aside the Spaniards 4-0 with two goals each for Divock Origi and Georginio Wijnaldum.
Then 24 hours later came another astonishing comeback.
In Amsterdam, Ajax skipper Matthijs de Ligt’s fifth-minute header and a superb 35th-minute effort by Hakim Ziyech put Ajax 3-0 up on aggregate against Spurs at halftime, seemingly securing its first final in 23 years.
Brazilian Lucas Moura, however, scored a second-half hat trick, including the aggregate winner, six minutes into stoppage time as Spurs went through on away goals.
It was perhaps inevitable that the final, won 2-0 by Liverpool in Madrid, felt like something of a letdown, but fans of European football could hardly complain after a season that saw such extraordinary thrills.
UEFA’S newest competition, the Nations League, proved to be a bigger success than most imagined and ended with Portugal beating the Netherlands 1-0 in the final in Porto, Portugal.