Two former Champions League winners, Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund, suffered differing fortunes on Tuesday in their Champions League last-16 first-leg ties. United’s woeful season, in manager David Moyes’ maiden campaign, took another turn for the worse as they went down 2-0 to Greek champions Olympiakos in Piraeus and the measure of the task awaiting the English champions at Old Trafford in three weeks time is that only one team has come back from a two goal first leg deficit before in the Champions League knockout stages. Beaten finalists last season Dortmund can probably look forward to the quarter-finals of this competition as they beat Zenit St Petersburg 4-2 in Russia. Manchester United had been just one of three teams coming into the knockout stages not to have lost thus far in this season’s competition but goals from veteran Alejandro Dominguez and a stunning curling effort by Costa Rican Joel Campbell - on loan from Arsenal - ended that record. United can take heart that they have won 13 of their last 15 home games in the knockout stages of the competition although their last defeat was at this stage last year to Real Madrid. Moyes admitted it had been a woeful performance. “It’s the worst we’ve played in Europe, that’s for sure,” said Moyes, whose side are struggling to even make the competition next season as they trail fourth-placed Liverpool by 11 points. “It was a really poor performance.” His Olympiakos counterpart former Spain and Real Madrid midfielder Michel was delighted with the result but said there was still a long way to go if the Greek side were to reach the quarter-finals for the first time since 1999. “Today’s match shows we’ve done a very good job. I’m obviously very happy with this match, but most of all, I’m proud of my players,” said the 50-year-old. Dortmund had Zenit on the back foot from the start of their game as the hosts looked like a side that hadn’t played a competitive match since December 6. First Marco Reus set up Henrikh Mkhitaryan and then he scored himself in the first five minutes. Although Zenit restored a bit of pride in the second-half with two goals they were counter-balanced by Polish striker Robert Lewandowski scoring a brace to give the Russian side an almost impossible task in three weeks’ time.
Category: