Real crash out as United cruise to the quarters

Wow what a day. Real Madrid unable to move on again, embarrassed on their home field.

The first game for me was Man U vs. AC Milan. It was always going to be a tough job for AC Milan to reverse a 3-2 deficit at Man U and they failed at doing so miserably. They did however nearly have the opening goal with a header from Ronaldinho that went just wide. Unlucky as they were to not score, they did nothing to help themselves a few minutes later as Rooney headed home another goal and essentially put the match out of reach, with Milan now needing 3 goals to win the tie. Rooney slotted home another before Man U walked away with the game 4-0. Milan, knowing it was over, put little effort in the rest of the game. It was nice to see Beckham play against his old team and nearly score, but it was not Milan's night.

In what was the second game for me, Real Madrid looked to reverse a 1-0 deficit to Lyon. The night started out wonderfully for Real and Ronaldo scored a scorcher in the 6th minute and Higuain hit the post and should have scored. Kaka also had a great opportunity but failed to capitalize. Real will look back at these chances and cry, I think, about being unable to finish. Real completely dominated the first half but the second half was a different story as Lyon seemed to get into their stride and work the ball better. Yes they were still counter attacking but they were holding more possession and looking more dangerous. Finally in the 75th minute, Pjanic finished a brilliantly worked move by Lyon to equalize on the night and give a 2-1 aggregate in their favor. Real then pushed hard to respond now needing 2 goals to move on. Raul was brought on for a poor Kaka but he was unable to do anything of positive note (the only thing of note he did was make a fool of himself at the end against Cris). Lyon held and are now moving on to the quarters joining Man U, Arsenal, and Bayern so far. I have to say that Lyon were great at the back and special mention must be made of Cris, who seemed to head away every ball, and Delgado, who blocked many cross attempts, set up the Lyon goal and nearly scored himself.

As much as I would have liked to see my boys, Barcelona, knock Real out of the Champions League (preferably in the final) I am still happy to see them out. This marks the 6th straight season that Real have crashed out in the knock out stages early on. They have not made it past the quarters in those 6 years. After spending over 250 million pounds in the summer and making a priority of the Champions League, this is a big disappointment for los Blancos who will now have to settle on fighting for the la liga title with Barcelona.

That is all for this week, some great games and great goals. I will post again next week after the Champions league activities of Barca-Stuttgart, Sevilla-CSKA Moscow, Bordeaux-Olympiakos, and Chelsea-Inter Milan.