Match of the Dave

It was a busy week in Europe with both the Champions league and the UEFA cup having ties played.

There were good results for the English teams remaining in the champions league, starting with Manchester United who beat Lyon 1-0 at Old Trafford thanks to a well-taken Ronaldo strike, bent in to the bottom corner from a very tight angle under pressure. United went through to the Quarter Finals as this second leg result gave an aggregate score of 2-1 to the English side.

Hot on their heels were current Premiership leaders Arsenal, progressing in their tie with last year’s winners AC Milan thanks to goals from Fabregas and Adebayor. The former was a stupendous strike that showed real quality and the latter owed much to fine work on the wing from Theo Walcott who continues to grow in stature. This was a very impressive result for the gunners away from home in the intimidating San Siro.

Scottish dreams of Champions League glory were finally extinguished in the Nou Camp as Barcelona built on their 3-2 first leg score to win 1-0 at home to Scottish Champions Celtic and end the tie with an aggregate score of 4-2. While the Glasgow club will be disappointed to be out of the competition, they can take heart from the fact that not many teams will put two past Barcelona in Europe this season and very few will escape the Nou Camp with such a narrow defeat.

An exciting fixture that kept swinging back and forth was Sevilla vs Fenerbache. In both games, it looked like it could go either way and at the end of 90 minutes in Tuesday’s second leg, the aggregate score stood at 5 a-piece. The deadlock wasn’t broken in extra time and so it was decided on penalties, with the Turkish side progressing.

Chelsea failed to score in the first leg of their game with Olympiakos and so came in to Wednesday’s return fixture at home in a potentially perilous position - they must not conceed or run the risk of falling foul of the away goals rule. In the event such concerns bore no weight as they eased to a comprehensive 3-0 victory with goals from Ballack, Lampard and Kalou.

Spanish heavyweights Real Madrid found themselves out of the competition at the end of their match against Roma who won 2 - 1 on Wednesday and 4-2 on aggregate.

There was no shortage of drama in the game between Porto and Schalke 04 as the Portuguese side used home advantage to level the tie at 1-1 on aggregate with just four minutes remaining in the 2nd leg. Truth be told, they could have won it in normal time were it not for a superhuman performance between the sticks by Schalke ‘keeper Neuer. The game went to extra time which didn’t favour 10-man Porto, understrength after the 82nd minute sending off of Fucile. However, the stalemate could not be broken and it went to penalties.

Again, the difference was Neuer and two saves - one especially brilliant as he bent his arm up and behind his shoulder yet still managed to punch strongly away from the goal - meant Schalke had the chance to win it with their 4th penalty. Jones stepped up and buried a supremely confident spot-kick in to the roof of the net to send Schalke in to the draw for the quarter finals.

So there’s just one game remaining in the round of 16, as Liverpool travel to Inter Milan on Tuesday for the second leg of a tie they lead 2-0.

Now to the UEFA Cup, where Carling Cup Winners Tottenham Hotspur were at home to Dutch side PSV Eindhoven. A lacklustre start from the North London club was punished on 34 minutes when debutant Gilberto decided to take his time clearing his lines and was robbed by a very grateful Farfan, who buried a powerful shot past Spurs goalkeeper Paul Robinson.

This woke the home side up a little but there was rarely any end product to their efforts and the tie ended with no further score, meaning that Spurs must now score in the return fixture to have any chance of progressing.

Rangers kept the Scottish participation in Europe alive with a strong 2-0 victory at home to Werder Bremen. The gers scored either side of half time to give themselves a good chance of making it through to the draw for the next round. The first goal came from Fulham transfer target Cousin, who doesn’t appear to be letting the uncertainty over his future affect his play.

Two goals from former Liverpool striker Djibril Cisse made the difference for Marseille as they beat Zenit St Petersburg 3-1 at home. Niang scored Marseille’s second in between two strikes from Cisse, with Arshavin responding with an away goal for the Russian side to take in to the return leg.

Elsewhere, Fiorentina dented Everton’s European hopes with a 2-0 win at home and completing a night of disappointing results for the English sides in the competition, Bolton could only draw 1-1 at home to Sporting after taking an early lead. Getafe got a useful away win at Benfica, ending the game 2-1 up and Bayer Leverkusen won the all-German tie with Hamburg 1-0.

The biggest score of the round came at Anderlecht of Belgium, who succumbed to Bayern Munich after going down to 10 men shortly before the break, eventually finding themselves on the wrong side of a 5-0 drubbing.

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