NEWS AND CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DRAW: Manchester United and Liverpool could meet in a month's time for a place in the European Cup final at Hampden Park, but there is a catch. Not only do Liverpool have to beat Bayer Leverkusen to reach the last four but United face the more daunting prospect of reversing their bad run of Champions League results against Deportivo La Coruna.
At the start of the season, when he was still set on retirement this summer, Alex Ferguson bridled at talk of how nice it would be to finish his Old Trafford career by winning the European Cup for a second time and in his home city of Glasgow. Such speculation seemed idle when United were outplayed by Deportivo, away and at home, in the first phase.
Now Ferguson has decided to stay on as United's manager their Champions League campaign has lost its valedictory flavour. And yesterday it lost the luck that so often accompanies Ferguson in European draws.
Even Liverpool, who have defeated Ferguson's side in their past five encounters, would surely have been preferable to a Deportivo side who have recently seen off Arsenal in the same peremptory fashion as they dealt with United.
In United's favour is the fact that if their defending has not improved significantly since the games against Deportivo, at least the vulnerable spots are getting protection. And Ferguson expects Fabien Barthez to avoid a repetition of the howlers that gifted Deportivo two goals when they won 3-2 at Old Trafford.
"People make a lot of us losing to them at Old Trafford," he said yesterday. "But we played some excellent football that night and it could have been a lot different. We created eight chances, they had four and we were unlucky that Fabien Barthez just had one of those nights."
As group winners United will have the supposed advantage of playing the opening leg of their quarter-final in La Coruna. One says supposed because with so many top-class teams like Deportivo thriving on the counter-attack, the mere avoidance of defeat in Spain would not necessarily strengthen United's chances.
Liverpool's task against Bayer Leverkusen looks easier and although they will have to go to Germany for the second leg, their away performances have been sound, if unspectacular. It is at Anfield where the main danger may lie.
Liverpool's assistant manager Phil Thompson was certainly wary of the Germans yesterday, saying: "They're probably the strongest, physically, of the three sides we could have been drawn against."
The way English, Spanish and German clubs have been kept apart increases the possibility not only of an all-English semi-final but a strictly Spanish affair between Barcelona and Real Madrid in the other.
Barcelona should make it past Panathinaikos but Real face holders Bayern Munich, who defeated them in last season's semi-finals.
Guardian service
