The Blues finally beaten, Bayern on title track and Dortmund off the bottom

The Blues finally beaten, Bayern on title track and Dortmund off the bottom
By Euronews
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Welcome to The Corner, our weekly round-up from the world of football. ‘‘Chelsea will lose’‘, predicted Jose Mourinho one month ago. Well on Saturday

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Welcome to The Corner, our weekly round-up from the world of football. ‘‘Chelsea will lose’‘, predicted Jose Mourinho one month ago. Well on Saturday at Newcastle his prediction came true. Elsewhere Bayern Munich continue their march towards the title while Borussia finally enjoyed a win.

Early comparison’s of Arsenal’s invincibles side ten years ago were made but even the ‘Special one’ himself didn’t quite believe his side could complete the season unbeaten.

Eventually Chelsea came unstuck against the Magpies.

A double from Papiss Cisse was enough – despite a late Didier Drogba goal – to hand the Blues their first defeat since April.

‘‘There’s no crisis’‘ says Mourinho, but the title race is now well and truly on.

In Germany, runaway leaders Bayern Munich survived a stern test before prevailing one nil against Bayer Leverkusen.

In a thrilling encounter at the Allianz Arena Franck Ribéry scored the winner and his 100th goal for the reigning Bundesliga champions.

The win leaves Pep Guardiola’s unbeaten side with a seven point cushion over surprise second placed Wolfsburg after 14 games played

At the other end of the Bundesliga, struggling Borussia Dortmund picked up only their second win from the past 11 league matches with victory over Hoffenheim.

Ilkay Gundogan’s first-half header was enough to give the hosts a much-needed three points which lifted Jurgen Klopp’s men off the bottom of the table and out of the drop zone.

Up and down

Let’s now check out who made our ‘Up and Down’ list from all of last week’s action.

Cristiano Ronaldo is once again on the up side – the Portuguese international reached his 200th La Liga goal and he did it in style by hitting a record 23rd hat-trick in the Spanish topflight to help Real Madrid beat Celta.

Also making the up list is Paris Saint Germain.

The French capital club beat Nantes 2-1 at the weekend – a result that maintained their unbeaten record this season.

Laurent Blanc’s side are the only club left in Europe’s leading leagues to be unbeaten in all competitions this season.

On the down and by no fault of his own is Manchester City’s lethal striker Sergio Aguero.

The Argentine international and the Premier League’s top scorer this term suffered ligament damage in his left knee against Everton and could face up to seven weeks on the sidelines.

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On this day

29 years ago, in Tokyo, Giovanni Trapattoni’s Juventus prevailed in what some people believe to be one of the most technical and combative matches ever played.

On 8 December 1985, Juventus won the Intercontinental Cup on penalties over Argentinos Juniors, becoming the first team to win all of their possible major international trophies.

Playing before a crowd of 62,000 at the National Stadium in Tokyo, Argentinos forward Carlos Ereros opened the scoring by chipping Juventus goalkeeper Stefano Tacconi in the 55th minute.

The sides then traded a pair of disallowed goals before Michel Platini brought Juventus level with a 63rd-minute penalty kick.

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Soon afterward, Platini found the back of the net with a brilliant move, lifting the ball over a defender with his right foot, then firing home with his left, but the referee disallowed it because another Juventus player was offside.

Instead, Argentinos took the lead in the 75th minute when José Antonio Castro scored from a tight angle into the far side of the net. Not to be outdone, Juventus forward Michael Laudrup scored from a equally narrow degree seven minutes later.

Locked at 2-2, the match went into a penalty shootout. After a miss from Laudrup and two from Argentinos, Platini converted the final kick to give Juventus the trophy.

It marked a complete silverware collection for the team from Turin, who had already won all of the domestic and European competitions available to them.

We might be wrong

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The North-West Derby in England takes place next Sunday at Old Trafford but what will the result be? We’ve had a crack at predicting that one as well as two other selected matches from next week.

Send us your predictions on the social networks using #TheCornerScores.

Manchester United 3-1 Liverpool
Augsburg 0-2 Bayern Munich
Porto 2-1 Benfica

Bloopers

And the Oscar for the most ridiculous dive of the year goes to… Adryan Tavares. The Brazilian Leeds United’s midfielder is the protagonist of ‘Bloopers’ this week. Watch the clip, and you’ll understand why.

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