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Manchester City and Manchester United both face difficult ties in the Europa League following their elimination from the Champions League.
City will face Portuguese Liga joint leaders FC Porto in the Round of 32 while United meet Dutch side Ajax.
Stoke City‘s reward for progressing from the group stage of the Europa League is a tie against Spanish outfit Valencia, who are third in La Liga.
In the Round of 16, Manchester City would not meet neighbours United.
So after an exciting first round in the Champions League, there are a few shocks and surprises as the competition takes a 2 month break. Of course the major shocks are the exiting of Man United, Ajax and Valencia.
Joining that clubs that had already qualified to the knock out stages are: Lyon, Basel, CSKA Moscow and Napoli. With the likes of United, Valencia, Villarreal, Porto and Ajax out of the tournament, it will be interesting to see whether the traditional European powerhouses will fair any better.
Terrible night for Manchester United and City as both clubs crashed out of the Champions League tonight.
The bigger shock was Man United losing 2-1 to Basel on a night that saw United captain Nemanja Vidic carried off with a bad knee injury.
United only needed a draw to progress but went behind after only nine minutes when Marco Streller fired home after Xherdan Shaqiri’s cross was kicked out by David De Gea.Unietd created chances but Wayne Rooney squandered several opportunities to equalise as he scuffed two chances.
For fans looking for close, exciting ties, this weeks Champions League ties were a bit of a disappointment with three of the four quarter-finals essentially over after the first leg. Unfortunately, the Europa League quarter-finals tonight followed a similar path as Villarreal, Porto and Benfica all enjoyed impressive first-leg leads, while Braga secured an away goal at Dynamo Kiev.
Porto hammered Spartak Moscow 5-1 as Falcao grabbed a hat-trick to take his tally in the competition to ten. The Colombia international opened the scoring after 38 minutes as he met a fine cross from Alvaro Pereira with an equally good header at the back post.
Andriy Shevchenko and Oleh Gusev struck as Dynamo Kiev established a two-goal advantage against Manchester City in the first leg of their Europa League round of 16 tie.
Shevchenko showed he has lost none of his predatory sharpness by turning in Andriy Yarmolenko’s inviting cross on 25 minutes. Then, Manchester City were enjoying their most promising period of the night when Gusev doubled the hosts’ lead 13 minutes from time. The Ukrainian team may never have won in England, but that will be of little concern ahead of the return match in seven days’ time.
A penalty from Alan enabled Braga to end Liverpool‘s unbeaten Europa League run this season, earning the Portuguese club a narrow lead when the round of 16 tie concludes next week.
Alan punished Sotiris Kyrgiakos’s trip on Mossoró after 18 minutes of an encounter which the hosts controlled before the break. Although Liverpool perked up in the second half, particularly after the introduction of club-record signing Andy Carroll, they seldom looked like scoring what would have been only their second away goal in the competition proper this term.
Neither Aris Salonikai and Manchester City were able to take a significant stride towards the Europa League round of 16 as the first leg of their last-32 tie finished 0-0.
Both teams had their chances in an even game in Greece, but neither was able to make the decisive breakthrough and they will reconvene at the City of Manchester Stadium with the tie goalless. Roberto Mancini’s side, looking to repeat or better their 2008/09 team, when they reached the quarter-finals, will seek to finish the job on 24 February.
Like the Champions League, the Europa League resumes again this week with the round of 32 matches.
The action kicks off on Tuesday with Manchester City FC’s new front man Edin Džeko aiming to help the Group A winners ruin Aris Salonikai’s 40-year unbeaten home record in UEFA competition in the first leg of their tie.
On Thursday, City’s Premier League rivals Liverpool will meet Sparta Prague. One definite boost for Kenny Dalglish’s Group K winners is that Wilfried Bony, who scored five goals in the group stage, left Sparta in January.
Adam Johnson’s first European goal for Manchester City arned Roberto Mancini’s side a point from their Europa League home meeting with Italian giants Juventus.
Luigi Delneri’s visitors took an early lead through Vincenzo Iaquinta’s long-range effort but Johnson levelled 26 minutes later. City lacked the spark to open up the visitors a second time, though, and Juventus almost grabbed all three points when Alessandro Del Piero’s late free-kick hit the crossbar with Joe Hart well beaten.
Juve‘s opener came out of the blue. There seemed no danger when Iaquinta cut inside from the left some 30 metres from goal. He let fly a diagonal effort which clipped Kolo Touré’s head and flew past Joe Hart low to the goalkeeper’s left.
After an entertaining 2 days of Uefa Champions League action, attention shifts back to Europe’s second tier club competition the Europa League. Tonight Liverpool host Atletico Madriod while Hamburg SV travel to Craven Cottage to face Fulham. This will be a night of tense emotion as all clubs involved will be looking to make it through to the final.
Liverpool’s only realistic chance of ending the season with some silverware depends on the outcome of their return leg fixture against Ateletico Madrid at Anfield tonight.
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