ARSENAL HOLD ON, CHELSEA, SCOUSERS, RANGERS GONE

 

(Images taken from BBC)

For British clubs, the first leg of the 1st knockout round of the Champions League had turned out to be a couple of days of mixed fortunes. Arsenal fans went mental. Jose Mouriniho did likewise(though I prefered the Highbury mentalness), the Scousers and Rangers both had problems but all four ties were still tight.

So the first stop was the Nou Camp where the Cocky One had to get his team to turn round a 2-1 deficit against Barcelona on what had become very much enemy territory. Unfortunately for the Blues, Barca weren't in an obliging mood and battered the English side until Ronaldinho hit the net. Now Chelsea needed two goals just to buy extra time. Well Frank Lampard may have hit an injury time penalty but that turned out to definately be too little too late, Barca going through 3-2 on aggregate and Chelsea back to the European drawing board.

Down the Spanish coast in Estadio El Madrigal, Villarreal had come home with an edge over Rangers, having picked up a 2-2 draw in Glasgow. That didn't look like it was going to count for much though when Peter Lowenkrands hit the net for Alex McLeish's crew. However the Gers came crashing back to Earth when Rodolfo Arruabarrena equalised for the home side, bringing the away goals rule back into play and forcing the Scottish side's amazing run to an end.

At Highbury, Arsenal were the only British side who came into their Champions League match in a good mood, even if they were having to deal with the galacticos of Real Madrid. Both sides had solid spells attacking with Real arguably having an edge but their top class battering ram couldn't get anything past Jens Lehman and David Beckham's virst visit to a Premiership ground on Real business ended in dissapointment for him, Arsenal holding on to their 1-0 lead from the first leg to make the quarter finals.

At Anfield, Liverpool had to hold on to their Champions League trophy despite losing in Portugal...but the Benefica fan's depiction of their side carrying the prize out of Anfield wound up coming true. The Lisbon side had a rock solid defence and outgunned the Scousers with goals from Simao and Fabrizzio Miccoli. Having said that, Steven Gerrard lifting the trophy last year was unlikely, they were always going to be pushing it to repeat the feat.

In the quarter finals, Arsenal are going to be rematching against their old captain Patrick Viera in their second heavyweight tussle in a row, with Juventus. The first leg's going to be at Highbury. The other quarter final ties have Barcelona playing Benefica(first leg at the Stadio de Luz), AC Milan playing Lyon(first leg at Muncipal de Gerland) and finally Villarreal visiting either Inter or Ajax in their tie. The Inter-Ajax round one tie currently stands at 2-2 with the San Siro leg still to go, meaning that it'll probably be Inter making the quarters.

Going down a level, Middlesborough started their UEFA Cup 2nd knockout round tie with Roma with the first leg at the Riverside, Steve McLaren's crew opening the scoring when Yakubu Ayebebni hit the net from an early iffy penalty. From there on in Boro gave as good as they got on a rough pitch and even rougher weather. They weren't able to get a second goal though which makes the tie still too close to call.

Going down further, there was a Scottish Cup quarter final replay between two First Division sides, Dundee and Hamilton at Dens Park. 0-0 at half time, Robert Mann and Simon Lynch put the home side two up only for Carricondo Juango and Pat Keogh to buy extra time for Hamilton. It was Dundee's Steven Craig who won the match in extra time though, and will face Gretna in the semis, garunteeing that one of the sides in the Final will come from outside the Premiership.

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