PSV Eindhoven's fans disgraced themselves and their club before Tuesday's Champions League round of 16 second leg at Atletico Madrid. Supporters reportedly threw coins at beggars from their terrace chairs and made them scramble for them before the fans were evicted from the plaza.
PSV's players, on the other
hand, covered themselves in glory. They took Atletico, one of the
world's strongest teams, all the way to an eighth round of penalties
before falling to the favorites.
That
made PSV, the 1988 champions of this tournament, one of the season's
Cinderella stories in Europe. After all, the Dutch league has been plundered for talent and economically devastated
to the point where its clubs can't compete continentally anymore. They
lose their best players every summer, just as PSV had seen Memphis leave
for Manchester United and Georginio Wijnaldum for Newcastle United last year.
But
PSV nonetheless qualified from a group that contained Wolfsburg and
United – at the expense of the latter, making the Memphis transfer all
the more ironic – and kept mighty Atletico scoreless over two legs and
210 minutes of soccer, in spite of playing much of the second half of
the first leg with 10 men.
In the first leg in Eindhoven, in fact, Davy Propper had a good chance to win the game for the home side.
On Wednesday, PSV goalkeeper Jeroen Zoet once again denied Antoine Griezmann from point-blank range with a fine save.
That would be the trend throughout the night, as Atletico outshot PSV 26-10.
And this time around, too, PSV had a chance to steal a goal during regulation in the second half. But Jurgen Locadia's curling effort was pushed onto the post by Jan Oblak. And Luuk de Jong's header on the rebound was blocked.
Neither team failed from the
penalty spot for the first seven rounds. Zoet got two firm hands on
Atletico's fourth kick by Saul, but it deflected into the net.
Then, finally, Luciano Narsingh slammed PSV's eighth kick off the crossbar and stalked off as if he'd fully expected to do so. Juanfran converted Atletico's penalty and sent his teammates into a frenzy and his club into the quarterfinals, ending PSV's dreamy run.
Source : yahoo.com
