Champions League Round of 16: March 5

Champions League Round of 16: March 5

Real Madrid 1-2 Roma (2-4 agg)
That sound you hear is Iker Casillas weeping into his gloves as the defence in front of him imploded once again and Real Madrid crashed out of the Champions League at this stage for the fourth year in a row. Pepe was sent off for a second yellow card in the 71st minute, and just a couple minutes later Taddei scored the opening goal for Roma. Raul equalized shortly thereafter, but his team would have still needed another goal to bring them level over two legs. Instead it was Roma who scored again, Vucinic guaranteeing their place in the next round with a goal in stoppage time.

Chelsea 3-0 Olympiakos
Fucking Chelsea. I guess it was too much to hope that they would choke. Instead they've cruised through, helped by the fact that Olympiakos were essentially useless. They've also demonstrated that Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard can play together after all: the opening goal was a Ballack header from Lampard's cross, the second Ballack's shot and Lampard scoring the rebound. (Kalou added the third goal in the second half.) So, I don't know; maybe we need to start teaching Steven Gerrard some German.

Porto - Schalke (1-1 agg; 1-4 pen)
Porto were down to 10 men when Lisandro Lopez scored in the 86th minute to cancel out Schalke's 1-0 lead from the first leg and force extra time. But after that ended with no more goals, Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer made two penalty saves to send his team into the quarter-finals for the first time.

Liverpool travel to Italy next week for the second leg against Inter. I will be wearing my lucky red shirt and attempting not to bite my fingernails.