EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

Ferguson changed the lineup slightly: Tevez up front; Giggs, Anderson, Carrick and Park in the midfield with Hargreaves playing a defensive midfield role; Silvestre, Pique, Ferdinand, and Brown on defense. The change in lineup was perhaps due to Manchester United’s 2-0 win against Roma last week. Roma’s starting lineup had 4 yellow cards (Mexes, Vucinic, De Rossi, and Cassetti); Totti was still out injured.

Man Utd. were much more active attacking and had multiple good opportunities when Roma’s defense had not gotten back in time. The second leg of the quarter finals tournament began with Manchester United dominating by a slight margin. In the 29th minute De Rossi dashed into Manchesters penalty box and Wes Brown tried to slide kick the ball away from him, though he came close he never touched De Rossi who fell down and earned a penalty kick. De Rossi soared the ball way over the goal demonstrating to all the children in the world how a penalty kick should never be taken. The close call seemed to rattle Uniteds nerves; until the halfway point they were shaky on defense though Roma’s attacks were far from fluid.

In the 68th minute French international Ludovic Giuly came on for Pizarro. Tevez stole the ball from Roma off the throw in, he dribbled halfway down the field and passed the ball off to Hargreaves and then ran into the box. Hargreaves crossed the ball to Tevez who dove low and headed the ball to the far post past Roma’s keeper (69th minute). Ryan Giggs came off for Rooney just a few minutes later, but after the first goal Roma had lost hope and Manchester United had moved on to the Semi-Finals having beaten Roma 3-0 aggregate.