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It was Champions League (CL) week, and the British teams still left in the tournament had mixed fortunes.

On Tuesday, Liverpool and Chelsea were in action. Liverpool were the last British team to win the top prize, two years ago, and they took a precious 2-1 lead back to Anfield from the Nou Camp in the first leg. This result gave them a lot of breathing space, and although Barcelona won 1-0 on the night through Icelandic international Gudjohnsen, on as sub, the Reds held on to book a passage to the quarter-finals, beating last season’s winners of the competition in the process.

Gudjohnsen used to play for Chelsea, and his former team also brought to Stamford Bridge a good result (1-1) from the first leg of their tie against FC Porto. But on Tuesday, Porto’s lively start and re-organised system caught Chelsea a little by surprise; on 15 minutes, Porto’s star player, Ricardo Quaresma, put his side in front. After this point, however, Porto surprisingly discarded their impressive tactics from the first half hour and went more for the huge-kick-out-of-defence-that-invariably-goes-straight-to-the-opposing-defence-or-goalkeeper style of play. This was just as Chelsea wanted it, and sure enough, a couple of minutes into the second half a Robben shot from around 25 metres caught Porto’s Brazilian ‘keeper Hélton off guard and spun in. It was all-square then … until the 80th minute, when Ballack took advantage of not being marked by anyone at all in front of goal to score the winner. Chelsea, having won the English League Cup, remain alive in three more competitions!

Manchester United produced what was probably their worst performance of the season at home to Lille. They had brought back from France a one-goal advantage, that controversial free-kick by Giggs that Lille appealed against … unsuccessfully. At Old Trafford, Lille looked more likely to level the tie than anything else, but as with Manchester United’s Premiership result on Saturday at Liverpool, it was the better team that lost. This time Manchester United didn’t wait until added time to get the winner; on 72 minutes, Cristiano Ronaldo went on a run down the left, crossed, and there was Henrik Larsson to head the ball neatly in. It was Larsson’s last game and last goal for the club before returning to Sweden; he was substituted on 74 minutes so that he could enjoy a standing ovation from the 75,000 crowd. They’ll miss him.

Scottish champions Celtic had on paper perhaps the hardest task of all the British teams: to take a 0-0 result from the first leg to AC Milan. A brave performance by them took the game to extra time, but a brilliant goal by Brazilian star Kaká, winning the ball in his own half and taking it on all the way to score, decided the tie.

Arguably, it was Arsenal that were the biggest British disappointment. Once again, the first leg proved vital as the Gunners were always chasing a one goal deficit against PSV Eindhoven. They managed to level the aggregate score by an Alex own goal on the hour, but then seven minutes from time, the same Alex went up the other end and headed the goal that saw PSV drawing on the night but winning overall. So as well as Barcelona, last season’s beaten finalists are also out.

Other points of special interest in the Champions League games were the fastest goal in CL history (11 seconds, Bayern’s Roy Makaay against Real Madrid), and the exit of the same Real, along with Inter Milan in Valência (a game that gave rise to an impressive brawl at the end) and French side Lyon (out at the hands of Roma).

Through to the quarter finals are three English teams (Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool), two Italian (AC Milan and Roma), one German (Bayern), one Spanish (Valência) and one Dutch (PSV Eindhoven). Things are warming up!