Manchester United hammered AC Milan 4-0 to move into the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Leading 3-2 after the first leg, Man Utd tightened their grip on the tie when Wayne Rooney scored again. With the goal Rooney became on the second player in history to score in both legs of a European tie against Milan.
Any hopes that Milan had of getting back in the game were killed a minute into the second half when Rooney ran onto a brilliant ball from Nani to score his 30th goal of the season and knock Milan out of the Champions League.
After that it was party time at Old Trafford as Park Ji-Sung added a third after a great Paul Scholes pass.
By then, all that was left for the fans was David Beckham’s return to Old Trafford. His appearance was met with massive cheers and he almost had a fairy tale return when his 20 yard volley was turned over the bar by van der Sar.
Darren Fletcher rounded out the scoring with another header as United rounded off a 7-2 aggregate triumph.
Post Match Quotes
Sir Alex Ferguson, United manager
“It was a marvellous second-half performance. We got the break with the early goal in the second half and after that we played very well. When we play with that tempo we’re difficult to play against; it was a solid United performance.
It’s a challenge [for Wayne Rooney to beat Cristiano Ronaldo’s 42-goal haul of 2007/08]. I was happy with him getting to 30 to be honest with you. He just keeps improving and tonight again he was sensational. Ji-Sung Park showed sacrifice, intelligence and discipline and we needed that against [Andrea] Pirlo because he’s a very good player for them. With the kind of team we’ve got it doesn’t matter who we play next.”
Leonardo, Milan coach
“We will have to analyse many things about the game but this is not the time to do it. We deserved something more in the first leg but this time around United’s victory was clearly deserved. They had a brilliant start, scored early on and everything became easier for them.
We did some good things in the Champions League this season. I thought we had a chance after our first-leg performance but we were up against a very good side. We lost [Alessandro] Nesta a few hours ahead of the game, than his replacement [Daniele] Bonera in the first half. I took a risk by fielding [Massimo] Ambrosini in defence, but it didn’t pay off.
It will be impossible to quickly put this game behind us but we are just four points adrift of Inter in Serie A with 11 games to play and we have to try to catch them.”
