Man Utd, Barca round out semifinals

BELGRADE: Manchester United completed a 3-0 aggregate win over AS Roma on Wednesday to join Liverpool and Chelsea in the Champions league semifinals as the three English teams repeated last season's success.

It will be joined by 2006 winner Barcelona, which beat German side Schalke 04 by a single goal at home to secure a 2-0 aggregate victory after Ivorian midfielder Yaya Toure scored shortly before halftime.

Liverpool faces Chelsea in the Champions League semifinals for the third time in four seasons after beating Chelsea in 2005 and last year while United, which lost last term to eventual winner AC Milan, plays Barcelona.

United manager Alex Ferguson was looking forward to his team's first competitive visit to the Nou Camp since its 1999 Champions League triumph there when it beat Bayern Munich 2-1 thanks to two stoppage-time goals.

"Barcelona are a fantastic club and it is a marvelous stadium with great memories for us," Ferguson told a news conference.

"We can't go there and be negative, we have to go there and be positive and if we do that we have a good chance.

"You have opportunities in life when you have got something really special in your club and I think we've got something special in this team.

"We want to go there and show what a good team we are. Barcelona have a fantastic history and is a very good club but we can't go there and be negative.

"We have to go there and be really positive and if we do that we have a marvelous chance."

A Carlos Tevez goal after 70 minutes gave United a 1-0 win at Old Trafford on Wednesday as the English champion maintained its record of never losing a knockout tie in Europe after winning the away leg first.

It did so for the 14th time after weathering some nervy first-half moments, including a penalty which Roma midfielder Daniele de Rossi blazed over the bar on the half hour following Wes Brown's challenge on Mancini.

It was United's third successive home win over Roma, following last year's 7-1 thrashing at the same stage of the competition and this season's 1-0 victory in the group stage.

United never looked like repeating last year's 8-3 aggregate drubbing of the Italian side, but Tevez sealed its passage when he headed an Owen Hargreaves cross past Doni.

Ferguson rested Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney, who came on in the second half, against Roma but his side still collected a record 11th straight home win in the competition thanks to a 70th-minute goal from Carlos Tevez.

He left the trio out of his lineup to keep it fresh for Sunday's Premier League clash with Arsenal. United is top six points clear of third-placed Arsenal and three in front of Chelsea with five games left.

"We can trust in all of our squad and quite rightly because they are good players and this tells me that these players can play in any type of game," said Ferguson, who especially praised the contributions of Tevez, Park Ji-Sung and Owen Hargreaves.

Roma coach Luciano Spalletti rued the penalty miss and other chances squandered but said United deserved to go through.

"We put in a good performance and can be proud of that," he said. "We knew we'd have to take risks and make chances and the important thing was to exploit them. Unfortunately, we did not capitalize on them.

"Had we done so it would have changed the face of the game but we have to be realistic and over the two legs Manchester United did a bit more than us and deserved their victory."

Spalletti believes United now has a decent chance of winning the competition for the first time in nine years.

Furious start

At the Nou Camp, a simple finish from Yaya Toure booked Barcelona's berth in the last four after a furious start in which Schalke had 10 shots in the opening 22 minutes.

Both goalkeepers made several good saves before Yaya Toure scored from close range, scrambling in a deflected cross by 17-year-old Bojan Krkic that fell kindly to him after it was cleared off the line.

Barca, under pressure due to its recent poor domestic form, looked to be in for a difficult night as Schalke launched an early onslught.

But the German side ran out of steam after conceding the goal and Barcelona held on comfortably in the second half to the relief of manager Frank Rijkaard.

Like Ferguson, Rijkaard was also relishing the clash that will renew old rivalries. United beat Barcelona 2-1 to win the now defunct Cup Winners Cup in 1991 and the teams twice drew 3-3 in the Champions League eight years later.

"I think we have got to get ready for two games against a team that is in top form and play very good football," Rijkaard told a news conference.

"I am delighted to have the chance of playing against them. The level in the Champions League semi-finals is very high and anything can happen so I'm not prepared to say who are the favorites," he said.

Agencies

(China Daily 04/11/2008 page24)