Champions League: Boniface Fires Leverkusen Past AC Milan

*Adeyemi scores hat-trick in Dortmund’s 7-1 demolition of Celtic

Duro Ikhazuagbe

Bayer Leverkusen ended their five-match winless home run against Italian teams last night as Victor Boniface’s lone strike was all last year’s Europa League finalists needed to beat AC Milan and consolidated their UEFA Champions League campaign at the BayArena.

After a barren first half in which the Super Eagles forward scored a 21st minute goal but was ruled offside, Boniface in the 51st, picked a rebound ball from Jeremie Frimpong effort to give Leverkusen the needed advantage.

That goal opened the game up, and only the outstretched arm of Lukas Hradecky prevented Tijjani Reijnders from restoring parity for Milan. Youssouf Fofana twice threatened to grab an equaliser soon after, while Alvaro Morata had hearts in mouths all round the BayArena when he blocked Hradecky’s attempted clearance and the ball deflected over the bar in the dying minutes.

While Samuel Chukwueze had an 80th minute cameo appearance as substitute for Christian Pulisic on the AC Milan side, another Nigerian international, Nathan Tella also came on as Leverkusen’s 89th minute replacement for Florian Wirtz.

The win is the second for Leverkusen in the Champions League after starting their campaign with 4-0 defeat of Feyenoord last month. For AC Milan, it is a second defeat as they lost 1-3 at home to Liverpool in their opening game of the campaign.

Elsewhere, German international with Nigerian ancestry, Karim Adeyemi, fired a hat-trick as Borussia Dortmund decimated Celtic 7-1. Adeyemi became the first Dortmund player to score a first-half hat-trick in Europe since 2002.

The forward is also the second German player to score a first-half treble in a Champions League game.

Emre Can opened the floodgates of goals when he converted Dortmund’s penalty as early as the seventh minute. Two minutes later, Daizen Maeda restored parity for Celtic to give an impression of a possibility night of a draw game.

But that was not to be as Adeyemi in 11th and 29th minutes extended Dortmund’s lead. Serhou Guirassy tucked away a penalty to make it 4-1. But Adeyemi added another goal to complete his hat-trick before the first half break.

Guirassy and Felix Nmecha added two more goals in the second half to complete the 7-1 decimation of Celtic.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

RESULTS

Barca 5-0 Young Boys

Bratislava 0-4 Man City

Salzburg 0-4. Brest

Stuttgart 1-1 Sparta

Arsenal 2-0 PSG

Leverkusen 1-0 Milan

Dortmund 7-1 Celtic

Inter 4-0 Zvezda

PSV 1-1. Sporting