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FIFA: Chelsea stroll as Real crash

/noticias.info/ Three qualifiers, three very different matches. Roma mixed elegance with ruthlessness against Real Madrid, Chelsea cantered home against Olympiakos while Schalke 04 had to rely on penalties against Porto. All three made it through on Wednesday night to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League, with the final Round of 16 tie between Inter Milan and Liverpool to be played next Tuesday.

Match of the day
Real Madrid 1-2 Roma
Goals: Raul (75') for Real Madrid, Rodrigo Taddei (73') and Mirko Vucinic (90+2') for Roma

For the fourth consecutive season, Real Madrid crashed out in the first knockout round. This year, they found themselves unable to break down a superbly organised Roma outfit, for whom Francesco Totti was particularly troublesome up front. Without their attacking talisman Ruud van Nistelrooij, the Merengues were stifled by Roma's constant harrying deep in the Madrid half.

The match burst into life after the break when Pepe was sent off for a second bookable offence. Rodrigo Taddei capitalised on a lack of organisation in the Madrid defence to open the scoring with a looping header from a fine Max Tonetto cross (73'). Then right from the restart, Raul sprang the offside trap, raced onto a pin-point through-ball from Robinho and equalised (75'). Roma kept possession well in the dying minutes however, and even managed to repeat the scoreline from the home leg when Montenegro international Mirko Vucinic outpaced Iker Casillas to convert a Christian Panucci free kick in injury time.

Goal of the night
Chelsea 3-0 Olympiakos. Michael Ballack (5')
Out on the left wing, Frank Lampard waited for just the right moment to send over an inch-perfect cross for Michael Ballack, whose header found the top corner of the net and left Antonios Nikopolidis with no chance. A simple yet perfectly executed goal.

Other matches
Chelsea set about their opponents right from the kick-off and took the lead after only five minutes thanks to Michael Ballack's superb header. The Greek outfit were incapable of responding and, after being overrun in midfield, as good as surrendered the match. Frank Lampard then doubled Chelsea's lead on the half-hour, when he seized on a poor clearance by Nikopolidis. There would be no respite for Olympiakos in the second half either, with Salomon Kalou (48') notching the Blues' third minutes after the break as the one-way traffic continued.

For their part, Porto struggled for 88 minutes before finally breaking down a resolute Schalke defence. Despite Manuel Neuer's heroics in goal for the German side, Lisandro Lopez found the top corner with a strike from the edge of the area to send the match into extra time. The tie ended up being decided on penalties, with Neuer again being the decisive figure as he helped his side through thanks to two excellent saves.

The final tie, between Inter Milan and Liverpool, will be played on 11 March at the San Siro, where city rivals AC Milan were at home on Tuesday. The draw for the quarter and semi-finals will take place on 14 March in Nyon, Switzerland at UEFA headquarters.

The numbers game - 61
As in the record number of goals scored by Raul in the Champions League. In total, the striker has notched up an incredible 286 goals in 644 official matches for Real Madrid.

History
Chelsea are unbeaten at home in the Champions League since losing 2-1 to Barcelona in a last 16 tie on 22 February 2006. Since then the Londoners, whose Russian chairman Roman Abramovich has extra reason to hope that they make this year's final which is being played in Moscow, have strung together seven wins and three draws. Olympiakos, on the other hand, extended a sequence they will be anything but proud of - tonight's defeat making it eight losses from eight on English soil during which they have shipped no fewer than 25 goals.

Results
Real Madrid 1-2 Roma (first leg: 1-2)
Chelsea 3-0 Olympiakos (first leg: 0-0)
Porto 1-0 Schalke (first leg: 0-1) 1-4 pso notas_de_prensa_archivo