Sports
Leicester Stun Sevilla To Reach Last Eight
Leicester City’s dream Champions League debut continued as they reached the quarter-finals with a famous win against 10-man Sevilla.
Trailing 2-1 from the first leg, the reigning Premier League champions went ahead at the King Power Stadium through Wes Morgan’s close-range finish.
Marc Albrighton then gave the Foxes an aggregate lead before Samir Nasri was sent off for a second yellow card.
Steven N’Zonzi missed a penalty as Sevilla tried to take it to extra time.
Captain Wes Morgan said Leicester City had “pulled off the impossible again” after his goal inspired them to beat Sevilla 2-0 yesterday and reach the Champions League quarter-finals. Morgan and Marc Albrighton struck at the King Power Stadium and Kasper Schmeichel saved a late penalty from Steven N’Zonzi as Leicester overcame a 2-1 deficit to record a famous 3-2 aggregate win.
Leicester have toiled in the Premier League this season, costing manager Claudio Ranieri his job, but Morgan believes their European exploits merit comparison with last season’s title fairytale.
“We proved a lot of people wrong and pulled off the impossible again,” the centre-back told BT Sport. “Incredible. I can’t quite believe it.
We are newcomers in the Champions League, didn’t expect to get this far and here we are.” Leicester, now managed by Craig Shakespeare, will find out their last-eight opponents in Friday’s draw and Morgan was relaxed about which of Europe’s heavyweights they will face next.
“We will take whoever comes,” said Morgan, whose side have never previously reached the last eight of Europe’s top club competition.
“It is a fantastic night for Leicester. We still need to concentrate on the league, but we will enjoy this moment.”
Leicester City’s place in the Premier League was under threat by the time they lost the first leg of this Champions League tie in Sevilla – and it looked like Claudio Ranieri’s sacking was another chapter in the story of a dramatic fall from grace.
Now, in the space of weeks, the Foxes have gone from misery to another potential miracle as Sevilla, so highly rated and Europa League winners three years in succession, were beaten back by a tide of passion and emotion at the King Power Stadium.
The misery of the early months of the season, when the stricken and out of sorts Premier League champions looked a world away from last season’s team, has been forgotten.
When Italian referee Daniele Orsato blew the final whistle after the rawest of encounters, this atmospheric arena was suddenly engulfed in the sort of scenes it witnessed last May when Leicester won the title – the sort of scenes that no-one could have imagined seeing again when Ranieri was sacked amid shock and sadness on 23 February.
As Leicester fans danced and sang in their seats, they were contemplating another unlikely, unthinkable story – a place in the Champions League quarter-finals.
The Foxes join Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus and Real Madrid in Friday’s quarter-final draw.
On Wednesday, Manchester City go to Monaco and Atletico Madrid play Bayer Leverkusen to determine the final two sides in the last eight.
A well-known football pundit in the State, Chief Christopher Okonkwo has lauded the efforts and vision of the Super Eagles Coach Eric Chelle for going from one venue of the Nigeria Domestic Nigeria Professional Football League match to the other in monitoring Nigerian players, with a view to invite some exceptional good one discovered into the main stream of the Super Eagles team.
Okonkwo, who made the commendation in an interview at the Port Harcourt Club recently, described the positive move by Coach Chelle as a good step in the right direction, noting that the practice was how its been done in the past among any contracted coach assigned to tinker the Super Eagles team.
“Truly, it has been an old tradition in the country seeing any newly engaged Coach to lead the National team, visiting some our Nigeria League venues during the league matches to spot light some good talents that could be used to beef up some grey areas in the department of Eagles team”
He, however, frowned at the current situation where our coaches had continously been over depending on the use of foreign based players during invitation of players to the National camp, thereby, relegating the domestic home based league players to the background as if they have nothing much to offer to the team.
“I can vividly recall that the likes of great players in the mode of Finidi George, Taribo West, Kanu Nwankwo, Austin Okocha, Richard Owobokiri, Emmanuel Osuigwe among others started from Nigeria football league before they graduated to play in Europe through which they later invited to Super Eagles camp to represent Nigeria”
“Besides, I’m also of the view that going to secondary school football competitive games could equally serves as a a good platform to discover budding talents that could be nurtured to become great stars in near future”, Okonkwo frankly added.
Okonkwo, therefore, prayed that any football coach to be engaged by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to tinker the Super Eagles should be told not to confine himself in staying in big hotel alone but to be visiting some of our local league match venues, with a view to discover some good players that can be drafted into the Super Eagles team.
“Indeed, I stand to be challenged that there some young good players in the Nigeria Professional League. If spotted and exposed, could give the some of the invited foreign based players a stiff competitive fight in securing a postion in the team”, Okonkwo emphatically stated.
Ezechukwu, one of the youngest members of the Nigerian contingent at the championship in Ghana, said her ambition was to win the 100m title in style and cap it with a new personal record.
The fresh secondary school graduate explained that she is fully focused on contributing to Team Nigeria’s medal hopes and is determined to deliver strong performances across her events.
“My main objective in Ghana is to clinch the 100m title and the 4×100m,” Ezechukwu told Tidesports source.
“Nigeria can be assured of my very best and my commitment to the Team. I would love to set a new personal best in Ghana, but anything that comes, I will take it. The spirit in the team is high, and I think we are ready to go,” she said.
Ezechukwu, who was part of Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m relay squad at the World Relays in Botswana, said the experience gained from that competition has strengthened her mindset heading into the continental championships.
She admitted that she learned valuable lessons from her previous outing, including a difficult moment during the relay where an early error affected the team’s rhythm, but said she has used the experience to improve her discipline and composure.
“The secret is just being disciplined, training hard and trusting my coach and believing in God, and the result will show,” she added.
The teenager is part of a 41-member Nigerian team comprising 24 female and 17 male athletes competing at the championships, which begin today at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Nigeria are expected to compete across multiple track and field events as they aim for a strong finish against the continent’s elite athletes.
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