Rome 2 Manchester United 1

Wayne Rooney

Rome 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 1, Olympic Sta­dium, UEFA Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Quart­er-Fi­nal Fir­st Leg, April 4, 2007. Man­chester Uni­ted suf­fered a 2-1 loss to Rome in the fir­st leg fix­ture at the Olympic Sta­dium. To top it all, Paul Scho­les was giv­en his march­ing or­ders by ref­er­ee Her­bert Fan­del in the fir­st ha­lf for fouls on Chris­ti­an Wil­helms­son and Fran­cesco Toto.

Lu­ciano Spalletti´s te­am entered the mat­ch on the back of a 1-1 Serie A draw to Mil­an at the Olympic Sta­dium, whi­le Man­chester Uni­ted had trashed Black­burn Rov­ers 4–1 at Old Traf­ford in the Pre­mier Lea­gue. In Rome, Three Li­ons in­ter­na­tion­al Paul Scho­les, the mid­field ful­crum of Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s si­de, re­ceived a yel­low card in the 25th min­ute of the tussle for a late tack­le on Swedish wing­er Chris­ti­an Wil­helms­son and was sent off for an early bath just eight min­utes la­ter for a chal­lenge on Azzurri play­er Fran­cesco Totti. And one min­ute be­fore the break, Rome took the lead thanks to Brazili­an flanker Rodrigo Tad­dei who sco­red via a de­flec­tion off the legs of Wes Bro­wn. Des­pite a nu­mer­ic­al dis­ad­vant­age, Way­ne Roo­ney equal­ised for Man­chester Uni­ted as he con­ver­ted a sub­lime cross from Nor­we­gi­an strik­ing part­ner Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer on the hour ma­rk, on­ly for Mirko Vu­cin­ic to hit the win­ner for The Yel­low Reds in the 67th min­ute of ac­tion af­ter a mis­take from Ed­win van der Sar. Wi­th the sec­ond pe­riod pro­gress­ing, Fer­guson made two sub­sti­tu­tions as he re­placed Sol­skjaer wi­th Dar­ren Fletch­er on 72 min­utes, and Ry­an Gig­gs wi­th Louis Saha in the 77th min­ute, whi­le Alan Smith, Fang­zhuo Dong, Kier­an Richard­son, and Chris Eagles stayed on the substitutes´s bench. But des­pite throw­ing every­thing ex­cept the En­cyc­lo­pae­dia Brit­tan­ica at the Rome de­fence dur­ing the clos­ing sta­ges of the fir­st leg tie, the hard work­ing Old Traf­ford men lost the ga­me in Rome 2-1. Rome Te­am: Donieber Marangon, Cris­ti­an Chivu, Phil­ippe Mexes, Chris­ti­an Pa­nucci, Marco Cas­setti, Daniele De Ros­si, Si­mone Per­rotta, Chris­ti­an Wil­helms­son, Aless­andro Amantino, Rodrigo Tad­dei, Fran­cesco Totti. Sub­stitutes: Mirko Vu­cin­ic, Aleandro Rosi, Ri­cardo Faty, Rodrigo De­fendi, Mat­teo Fer­rari, Stefano Okaka Chuka, Gi­an­luca Curci. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ed­win van der Sar, Wes Bro­wn, John O’Shea, Rio Fer­dinand, Gab­riel Hein­ze, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ry­an Gig­gs, Paul Scho­les, Cris­ti­ano Ron­aldo, Way­ne Roo­ney, Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer. Sub­stitutes: Dar­ren Fletch­er, Fang­zhuo Dong, Louis Saha, Alan Smith, Kier­an Richard­son, Chris Eagles, To­masz Kuszczak.

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