European champions Liverpool crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday at the hands of Benfica, leaving Arsenal as the only English representatives left in this year's tournament.
A goal down from the first leg of their last 16 tie, the defending champions slipped to a 2-0 defeat at Anfield.
By contrast, Arsenal moved into the quarter-finals after a 0-0 draw at Highbury against Real Madrid gave them a 1-0 aggregate win.
PHOTO: AP
Simao -- a player that Liverpool came within hours of signing last summer -- grabbed the vital first goal in the 36th minute at Anfield with a wonderful curling left-footed drive which flew past Jose Reina in the Liverpool goal.
Liverpool twice hit the woodwork in the first half through Peter Crouch and Jamie Carragher while Benfica's Geovanni also had an effort come back off the crossbar.
Crouch and Luis Garcia also missed golden chances in the first half for the champions.
PHOTO: EPA
As the second half minutes ticked away, Liverpool found themselves needing to repeat the miracle of Istanbul last year when they score three goals on the way to winning the final.
But Benfica had the last word when Fabrizio Miccoli scored again a minute from time.
"Simao showed why he is such a good player," said Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez. "He plays with pace, he plays deep."
The statistics tell a depressing story for Liverpool.
Their four main strikers have managed just one goal between them in 45 matches.
"If you analyze the game, you can see that we created chances but when we conceded a goal, we had to go forward and we had to play with three defenders. That let them play on the counter-attack," said Benitez.
Arsenal, defending a 1-0 first leg lead, could have been ahead at the break had Juan Antonio Reyes not had a shot come back off the bar.
Raul was also denied by the woodwork on the hour mark while his follow-up was brilliantly kept out by goalkeeper Jens Lehmann but Arsenal held on to reach the last eight.
"We are very proud to represent England, the Premiership with dignity, with style and we will fight as hard as we can in the quarter-finals to go through again," said Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger.
Real's David Beckham said his team had done all they could have done to overturn Thierry Henry's first leg strike.
"I don't think we could have thrown anything more at them. They defended exceptionally well and we just couldn't break them down. I expected a few goals, but overall I wish them good luck because they are a good team," Beckham said.
AC Milan, last year's runners-up to Liverpool, booked their place in the last eight thanks to a 4-1 win over Germany's Bayern Munich.
Level at 1-1 after the first leg, Filippo Inzaghi gave Milan an eighth minute lead before skipper Andriy Shevchenko made it 2-0 on the night.
The Ukrainian striker also missed a first half penalty but quickly made amends with his 25th minute strike.
Valerian Ismail then gave Bayern a glimmer of hope pulling a goal back in the 35th minute before Inzaghi added a third two minutes after the break.
But Milan stepped up the pressure and Kaka made it 4-1 on the night on the hour.
Inzaghi refused to accept all the praise for Milan's passage into the last eight.
"I'm fortunate to play for a fantastic team and it's wonderful to see Milan play this way," he said.
Former Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier avoided the fate of his successor at Anfield, Benitez, by guiding French champions Lyon into the last eight.
Leading PSV Eindhoven 1-0 from the first leg, Lyon turned the screw on the Dutchmen with Portuguese midfielder Tiago scoring twice in the first half to give his side a 2-0 lead on the night.
PSV's Dutch international Phillip Cocu was red carded just before the interval.
Former Arsenal striker Sylvain Wiltord added a third in the 71st minute as Lyon gained sweet revenge for their defeat to Guus Hiddink's side in the quarter-finals last season.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier