With half of the Champions League quarter-final places being taken last week, yesterday saw four more teams battle it out for two of the remaining places. Barcelona, Tottenham, Shalke and Shakhtar Donetsk are all in Friday's draw and are awaiting their possible opponents.
Old Trafford saw Manchester United host Olympique Marseille, with the aggregate goalless, Marseille knew that a the away goal would be priceless. But it was United who came out flying and grabbed the early goal, Rooney shooting wide along the box only for Hernandez to tap home from about six yards. Marseille were never out of the game and after the goal United seemed to step right off the gas and let the French team enjoy possession. They also had decent chances but both Gignac and Diawara missed clear cut chances to equalise. There was some bad news in the first half for United though, John O'Shea had to be replaced due to a hamstring injury. The second was very cagey and United looked settled on the 1-0 win, possibly due to Marseille's stronghold in attack. But still Marseille failed to test Van Der Sar by missing chances and also failing to take advantage of their superior average height. United then dealt Marseille a sucker punch with Giggs this time rolling the ball across the box for Hernandez to tap home again to make it 2-0 with fifteen to go. But United weren't happy with a comfortable 2-0 scoreline and gave a corner in the last seven minutes which Brown seemed to get an ambiguous touch into the net, despite Scholes' effort to keep it out. United held on though to progress with the 2-1 aggregate win.
The other tie was at the Allianz Arena where Bayern Munich were looking to hold onto their 1-0 aggregate lead against reigning champions Inter Milan. But Inter equalised on aggregate almost instantly on the night with Samuel Eto'o breaking the deadlock after three minutes, to produce the only scoreline that would bring extra time. Mario Gomez equalised on the night after 21 minutes to give Munich the lead again, before Thomas Muller made it 2-1 ten minutes later to gain full control of the tie at 3-1 on aggregate. The tie wasn't over though as Inter equalised through Wesley Sneijder three minutes after the hour to pull one back. The next goal was going to be the ultimatum and Igor Pandev scored it for Inter two minutes from time to make it 3-2 on the night but 3-3 on aggregate, but the champions progress via the away goal rule.
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