Champions League draw: Rooney and Messi the big-name players in the quarter finals

By Jason Burt 700AM GMT nineteen March 2010

Top pull Manchester United"s Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi are the big-name players in the Champions League entertain finals Photo AFP

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The zenith of Wayne Rooney and the leverage of Lionel Messi, the standout performers of the prior round, will meant that whoever their teams are pitted opposite in the last eight will be the ties of the round.

Champions League and Europa League draws in full Champions League pull team-by-team guide Laurent Blanc casts Bordeaux in the purpose of underdogs United v Liverpool compare preview Charlton Rooney can hoop hype United set upon an additional sponsorship understanding

Given that both additionally achieved for last year"s finalists Manchester United and holders Barcelona the predestine of their clubs will go on to dominate. Although those clubs are from England and Spain, Friday"s pull contains the biggest farrago of nations in the foe since 1999.

Uefa might goal this is a trend, and a riposte to critics of the competition"s format, whilst the Premier League and La Liga would cite to call it a blip.

It equates to that with dual member from England and dual from France in the entertain finals for the initial time since 2004, and one each from Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia, the Champions League resembles something similar to the strange European Cup that it replaced.

With Liverpool unwell to have it out of the organisation stages and Chelsea going out to Inter Milan this week, fears that England was gaining a corner on the foe have subsided. Last year England and Spain supposing 6 of the last eight and, of course, for the last dual years all 4 semi-finalists.

This is the initial time the Premier League has had fewer than 3 clubs in the foe at this theatre since 2006, when Arsenal went on to reach the last and lost to Barcelona.

In the last dual years each of the Premier League"s "Big Four" teams have done it this far. So most for the stats. What about the football?

The Catalans are the group to kick again. After thwarting United"s attempts to keep the prize last year in Rome, Barca crop up uncommonly able of apropos the initial bar to grasp the attainment in Madrid, of all places, come May.

Form is temporary, category is permanent. But Barca, as Stuttgart found out, are enjoying both at the same time. They are the group to equivocate when the balls are drawn, by former Real Madrid striker Emilio Butregueño, in Nyon at 11am UK time.

United additionally yield a challenging plea in a pull that, in fairness, is some-more offset than it has been for years. There are no patently diseased teams nonetheless both United and Arsenal would, since the choice, name Laurent Blanc"s Bordeaux.

CSKA Moscow are in the last eight for the initial time and whilst a outing to Russia does not paint utterly the challenging plea it used to, a bound over to south-west France would be preferable.

Barca physical education instructor Pep Guardiola pronounced he had no elite competition in the draw.

"They"re all clever teams, the pull is intensely strong. We"ll have to do things really well to reach the semi-finals," he pronounced whilst Barcelona brazen Thierry Henry combined that he would similar to to equivocate Arsenal for romantic reasons.

The form of Messi, Henry said, was "ridiculous". "He"s amazing," he added. The same can positively be pronounced of Rooney, who has scored 32 goals this deteriorate to the Argentine"s 31.

"I think there is no jealous Messi is the most appropriate player in the world," Stuttgart physical education instructor Christian Gross said.

There might be dual players and dual clubs that the others will wish to avoid. But there is one physical education instructor also. Confidence will be coursing by Jose Mourinho and his Inter team, who have eventually damaged that "barrier" to reach this theatre again. With Mourinho, that represents genuine danger.

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