UNITED will face French club Lille in the first knockout stage of the Champions League.
Sir Alex Ferguson's men avoided the Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona in the draw, held in Nyon, Switzerland, and will now fancy their chances of reaching the quarter-finals for the first time since 2003.
The Reds will have home advantage in the second leg, to be played at Old Trafford on March 6 or 7. The first leg will be played in France on February 20 or 21.
United faced Lille in the group stages at last season, and were held to draws at home and away as they exited the competition at the group stages.
But club secretary Ken Merritt said: éThe players have improved since last year.é
He took little note of the fact Lille are unlikely to be able to play their 'home' leg at their own ground.
éThey have played all the group stages away from Lille and have still qualified - so it has not made a great impact,é he reasoned.
éWe need to get a good result there and then do the business against them at Old Trafford - which we did not do last time.
éYou want to fight on every front - but you cannot take things for granted.é
The draw threw up some fascinating ties, with Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho pitched against former club Porto, with whom he won the Champions League in 2004, while Liverpool face a mouth-watering clash with Barcelona, and Celtic will take on AC Milan. Arsenal were drawn against PSV Eindhoven.
Full draw: FC Porto v Chelsea; Celtic v AC Milan; PSV Eindhoven v Arsenal; Lille v Manchester United; Roma v Lyon; Barcelona v Liverpool; Real Madrid v Bayern Munich; Inter Milan v Valencia.
First leg matches to be played on February 20 and 21. Second leg matches to be played on March 6 and 7.
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Excellent! An easy draw for us combined with an opportunity to laugh at the Scousers!
Get in there you beauty!!
Im both happy and disappointed with the draw. This was probably the best we could get out of all the teams. But on the other hand it would have been interesting to take on a big club with our current form. But since we going all the way this year I guess that we will get the chance to beat Real/Barca/Inter later on in the tournament :-)
This is rather generous and it is now ours to lose! Ordinariry, with the kind of squad that we have, if the preps and tactics are good, we should not have a problem going over a team that is not glorious in the French League. Last season they benefitted from our own confusion. I really do hope that SAF and his coaching staff have learnt their European lesson well and get their tactics right. Surely, with this draw, failure to get to the quarters would equal a collapse in Europe of monumental proportions, like last season. The draw has been kind, let's get to work.
Delighted. Cant see us not gettin 2 da quarters and from their, only two teams b4 da final!
without doubt the best draw we could have got. good draws for chelsea and arsenal as well really. english teams could have a good turn out in the 1/4s.
This will surely give us the opportunity to rest our key players and thus give the likes of O'Shea, Richardson, Fletcher, and Smith the chance to shine.
Great draw poor, write up MEN, but great draw.
i dont want to tempt fate by thinking ahead, but how does the 1/4 final draw work? can all the teams pull each other from now on whether they were in the same group same nation and whatever?
This should see us through to the qauters and a proper test. Good draw.
Faie enough to Lille but i think we should go through. If we can't beat lille home & away, then we don't deserve to be there.
Good luck to Liverpool.
By permutation, who could be our next opponent in the last 8.
The best possible draw-there can be no excuses for not reaching the last eight now.We should even be able to play Rooney at left back-which Fergie probably will, after drawing the French equivalent of Middlesboro!! And the Scousers have the worst possible-couldnt have happened to nicer club.I wonder if Gerrard might be interested in a career now at OT?
Good draw yes but does everybody realise there are two legs to play and anything can happen, remember last year??? Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves but I agree that we should make it thru but not if we rest key players or mess about playing 4-5-1.
macca, it is unrestricted.
Fingers crossed we play our full strength team over both legs. JoJ please tell me you are joking.
Alias remeber last year we could not beat lille. if saf approaches this game with the right attitude ie we are better than lille and decides to take them on playing OUR style of football there will only be one result a United win. On the other hand if he approaches this tie as he has done for the last 4/5 years and intends to play 4-5-1 with Rooney relegated to the left wing then anything can happen. We have nothing to fear we are a very good team ( 1st 11) be positive Sir Alex circa 99 if they score 1 we will score 2 .
Excellet draw. Please Fergie get your tactics right, Play strongest available team and don't mess with the Formation. 4-4-2 all the way!!!
Ducan, playing O'Shea, Fletcher, Richardson, and Smith is no joke. It doesn't make me laugh, anyway.
what a suprise. utd getting the worst team left in it."
Joj, we must try and put our best team out, but I wouldn't be so bothered if Fletcher was in the team, the others players you mentioned are a bit iffy I am afraid. In any case, if I could have picked an opponent it would have been Lille, although to the person above who claims they are the french equivalent of Middlesboro', please think about what you are saying, where did Boro' finish last year? If you look at the other ties, us beating Lille will give us a good chance of getting into the semis. Four of Liverpool, Barca, Roma, Lyon, Inter, Valencia, Real & Bayern will be out.
TO BE HONEST I DONT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT OF UNITED IN EUROPE ANYMORE....ONLY THING I CAN REMEMBER IS LAST FEW MINUTES OF THE MATCH AGAINST PORTO...MY FRIENDS ARE TALKING ABOUT WHO WE SHOULD GET IN THE NEXT ROUND, I TOLD THEM SHUT IT ITS NOT OVER YET BUT THEY CHOSE TO IGNORE ME AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THEN DONT WE...MORAL OF THE STORY DONT GET TO AHEAD OF OURSELVES...LETS JUST BEAT LILLE FIRST AND THEN CONCENTRATE ON WHO WE WILL PLAY NEXT BUT THAT POINT THIS IS A MATCH THAT WE NEED TO WIN NO MATTER WHAT AS DEFEAT WOULD NOT ONLY BE EMBARASSING BUT ALSO DISASTOROUS....SO LETS NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AGAIN...ALTHO I AM SAF WONT LET THIS HAPPEN
attack 4-4-2 attack 4-4-2 attack 4-4-2 not stufing around with the team now right simple attacking formation and tactics = win
Nikolai makes a good point. A good draw but it could encourage Fergies bright idea to keep playing that formation in Europe. Lets face it we made the group look hard and the only entertainment on display was the Celtic game at OT and why did we spring to life? Because they went for it! Europe is still the stumbling block with Fergie he wants it so badly but refuses to go back to the way we played when we actually picked up the trophy!
I see a story has come out that Fergie went to watch Lille last weekend and obviously he wouldn't have known we were going to get Lille so i would guess he went to run his eye over Jean Makoun. To be honest i haven't seen enough of the lad to say if he would be a good buy or not but it seems we might be looking so the whole hargreaves thing could be a smokescreen.
Time for revenge for the humiliation of last season. Surely Alex/Carloz wont play Rooney out wide for this game. Surely?