Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Champions League Quarterfinals: Second Legs

Well, like I said last week, most of the matches were decided in the first leg. So, because of that, I'll only provide a truly detailed report of the Manchester United v. Chelsea match. Stupid one-sided matches.


Schalke 04 2-1 Inter Milan (Agg. 7-3): Raul scored his 71st Champions' League goal just before half-time. Soon after, Inter's Thiago Motta equalized in the 49th. Benedikt Howedes put the tie out of Inter's hands in the 81st.


Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 (Agg. 0-5): In this second leg, Jose Mourinho played basically his strongerst side possible. It payed off, thanks to a howler from Gomes, Tottenham's keeper. After Cristiano Ronaldo took a fairly weak shot from 30 yards out, Gomes failed to catch it and it went into the back of the net.


Shakhtar Donetsk 0-1 Barcelona (Agg. 1-6): After Barca destroyed the Ukrainians at the Nou Camp, they had an easy time going through to the next round. In the 43rd, Leo Messi put it past Pyatov after passing through the Donetsk defense.


Manchester United 2-1 Chelsea (Agg. 3-1): FINALLY. The only match where the winner of the tie wasn't already decided. With the Champions' League being the only trophy that Chelsea even had a realistic chance at winning, they needed to turn around the scoreline. But, for some reason, Carlo Ancelotti stupidly played an out-of-form Fernando Torres instead of Didier Drogba. Tisk-tisk. With the match being scoreless until the 43rd, Javier Hernandez finally put the Reds up doing what he does best, poaching. Ryan Giggs delivered a low-cross across the box, to find Hernandez, who had the simple task of tapping it into the back of the net. Despite being down 2-0 on aggregate now, Chelsea kept on persevering to get back into the draw. During half-time, Ancelotti finally brought on Drogba, who nearly scored soon after half-time, but his shot went past the post. Then, in the 70th minute, Ramires certainly didn't do the Blues any favors when he got sent off with a second yellow for a foul on Luis Nani. However, the goal-hungry Drogba didn't let up, and scored in the 77th to give Chelsea hope of advancing. Sadly for them, Ryan Giggs got his second assist of the match with a fantastic pass to Ji-Sung Park, who scored to put the Blues out of the Champions' League.

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