When Demetriou, the then Walsall defender, scored the only goal of his 51-cap international career to put Cyprus 2-1 up in Israel, the small but raucous red corner of the Bilino Polje Stadium burst into scenes of pure elation.
Real Madrid have banned a club member for performing the Nazi salute during the Champions League playoff second-leg against Benfica, a game already overshadowed by allegations of racism. Madrid said in a statement that it had urgently requested the club's disciplinary committee to start an immediate expulsion procedure for the member, who was caught on TV cameras doing the gesture in the stands before kickoff.
It's been a difficult period and I think the players have to take a lot of responsibility, because we've got to do better, first and foremost. For whatever reason it was, we had too many injuries and we just couldn't cope with the amount of games and the quality we were up against in the Premier League over the last couple of months. Now we've got everyone back and we've got a squad, we've been picking up some good results, so hopefully that can give the club a boost.
Bodø/Glimt were already admired for their ascent through the Norwegian system-returning to the top flight only in 2017 and winning four league titles in the years that followed. But their leap into the Champions League spotlight this season has been extraordinary. As tournament debutants, they arrived with curiosity surrounding them-but they quickly replaced intrigue with astonishment.
This is as must-win as must-win gets, so there's zero doubt about Flick going with his strongest possible team for this one. The back four picks itself these days, so it'll be Joan Garcia in goal with Jules Kounde, Pau Cubarsí, Eric Garcia and Alejandro Balde making up the backline, althouth Gerard Martín could start ahead of Eric if the coach decides to freshen things up just a bit.
Similar to this season, their 27th game involved a trip to the West Midlands to face a side battling relegation in Alex McLeish's Birmingham City. After an awful injury to Arsenal striker Eduardo and a goal from 10-man Birmingham's James McFadden, an 18-year-old Theo Walcott scored his first-ever goals in the Premier League to leave the leaders 2-1 up heading into injury-time.
It'll be another difficult game. We had some great chances in the league clash that we didn't capitalise on. That contributed to the course of the game. Of course, you can't blank out the atmosphere. As a player, you're in the tunnel and don't notice everything, but that, you do notice, of course. But starting the game better, coupled with our own quality and our own build-up play and getting the opener, we can dampen the atmosphere. That can make a big difference.
In this stadium, how they are pushing here with the supporters, really huge atmosphere. How we were feeling, our supporters supporting us and helping us, it was really fantastic. And then we played the match with discipline. We were defensively, getting a huge responsibility to stop them, to avoid getting in our box creating chances and we did. We had a lot of transition to score one more, one goal like we did and more.
Rangers will head into the UEFA Europa League game against Ludogorets Razgrad on Thursday on the back of a 5-0 victory over Anna Athletic at Ibrox in the Scottish Cup. It came after a 2-0 victory over Aberdeen on the road in the Scottish Premiership, which followed a 2-0 win against the same opposition at home just three days earlier.
Bayern kicked off the tournament in a rather rusty fashion, as they found themselves trailing 3-1 to Juventus in their opening game. However, because Bayern have made a habit of comebacks nowadays, they came back in style to win 4-3. Ribéry, Sebastian Rudy (remember him?), Mandžukić, and Mark van Bommel scored the goals. The second and last group game pitted the hosts against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Ange-Yoan Bonny, in for the rested Lautaro Martinez, created an early chance with a run and shot that was parried away by Wladimiro Falcone. Bonny then thought he had won a penalty, but a VAR check ruled that Danilo Veiga had played the ball. Falcone punched away a Nicolo Barella header from close range shortly after the break, then gathered a shot from Andy Diouf as the hosts continued to struggle to open up a dogged Lecce defence.
