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It started on Saturday with results that threw open the race for the Premiership title: leaders Manchester United lost 1-2 at Portsmouth, thanks to an inferior performance and an embarrassing own-goal in the dying minutes from Rio Ferdinand (with a little help from goalkeeper Edwin van der Saar). Earlier in the day, Chelsea had beaten Tottenham 1-0 in the London derby with a 30-metre strike from Portuguese central defender Ricardo Carvalho. United’s lead at the top was cut to just three points, with a game between the two clubs on the horizon …

The rivals were involved in the Champions League during the week, too, both in a similar position: their quarter-final first leg games had left them with a tough job to do in the second legs.

Perhaps the more complicated task was Chelsea’s: they had only managed a draw at Stamford Bridge against Valencia, and the Spanish club are notoriously difficult to beat in their own stadium. But after going one down to a Morientes goal in the first half, Mourinho’s warriors (and on the night it was more a battle – albeit generally fair – than beautiful football), with hard work and perseverance, broke Valencia down and came back to win 2-1 with goals from Shevchenko and, on the stroke of time, Essien.

The Londoners will play European legends Liverpool in the semi-finals, which means that there will be at least one English club in the Athens Final. The Reds brought a 3-0 lead against PSV Eindhoven back to Anfield, and the stroll they were expecting (despite coach Rafa Benitez’s pre-match insistence that it wasn’t over yet) turned out to be more or less that, Peter Crouch confirming Liverpool’s superiority over the two legs.

In the Final, Chelsea or Liverpool may meet AC Milan. The Italian giants were second favourites at Bayern Munich because the German team had scored two away goals in a 2-2 draw in the first leg. But Milan put all their European experience on the field and surprised Bayern with two goals in four first-half minutes, two strokes of genius from Dutch midfielder Clarence Seedorf making the difference: on 27 minutes he dummied two Bayern defenders to make room for himself to shoot and score from the edge of the area, and then on 31 minutes he flicked the ball on to leave Filippo Inzaghi (possibly offside) in a one-on-one with Oliver Kahn; the German ‘keeper didn’t stand a chance.

Milan’s win restored a little Italian pride after what had happened on Tuesday night. Roma’s captain Francesco Totti had said before the game at Old Trafford that to beat Manchester United would mean more to him than winning the World Cup with Italy last summer, and it looked possible for Roma to do just that; they had a 2-1 win from the first leg, and Italian sides are famous for their tight defending … normally. What happened to Roma on the night, though, was nothing short of total humiliation. In a seven-minute spell early in the first half, they were 0-3 down through goals by Carrick, Smith (because of injury, his first since November 2005 - a magnificent one-touch, six-pass move from defence to attack by United) and Rooney, and just before the break, Cristiano Ronaldo added a fourth – incredibly, his first Champions League goal for United. As the Roma players trudged off for the half-time oranges, damage limitation must have been uppermost in their minds, but there was more damage to come. Ronaldo and Carrick got their second goals to make it 6-0, De Rossi got a meaningless consolation, and substitute Evra made it 7-1 (!!) near the end.

Asked by journalists what he could have done differently, the shell-shocked Roma coach Luciano Spalletti didn’t hesitate: “I could have stayed at home …” Fans of the Italian giants will take some time to put the Manchester massacre behind them – on the day after the game, shares in the club fell in value by 10% – but for United fans, they had witnessed one of the greatest victories in the club’s history. And a repeat of violent scenes between fans before the game could not take the shine off this historic triumph.

by Phil Town

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