Manchester United set for Champions League semi-final in Barcelona

Sir Alex Ferguson is relishing the prospect of resuming one of the great rivalries in European football when he takes Manchester United to Barcelona for their Champions League semi-final in two weeks time.

The English champions booked their place in the last four with a 1-0 win over Roma on Wednesday night, Carlos Tevez's second-half header enabling them to set a new record for the tournament with their 11th consecutive home win.

It was a performance that fell short of the standards United had set in winning the first leg in the Stadio Olimpico 2-0 a week earlier but, having rested both Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, Ferguson declared himself satisfied with the performance and the return from injury of two of his most experienced defenders, Gary Neville and Mikael Silvestre.

By the time of the first-leg in the Nou Camp, Ferguson also hopes to have Nemanja Vidic back alongside Rio Ferdinand in the centre of his defence.

"Hopefully we will have a full squad by the time we go to Barcelona," he said.

"We have had some fantastic games with them over the years, matches that represent the way the game should be played."

United will have the advantage of playing the first leg of their semi-final on Barcelona's turf and Ferguson promised his side would travel to Catalonia looking to take control of the tie. "You have opportunities in life to do something special and I think we have something special in this team," he declared.

"Barcelona are a wonderful team but we can't go there and be negative, we have to go there and be positive."

United face a testing Premier League run-in that starts with an Old Trafford meeting with Arsenal on Sunday, but Ferguson is confident that his side will travel to Barcelona in a more battle-ready state than when they succumbed meekly to AC Milan at the same stage last season.

"I think the energy of the team is far ahead of where it was a year ago," he added. "We had a lot of injuries at the time and we played in Milan against a team that had rested eight players on the Saturday. If we had had better energy we would have gone through to the final."

Roma coach Luciano Spalletti has no doubt that United could now go on and lift the trophy in Moscow on May 21. "I don't know if they will win but they are certainly well equipped to. They have huge potential as a team and in terms of individual players."

Spalletti admitted poor finishing had cost his side the chance of making United pay for their own failure to take a string of chances early in Wednesday's second leg."We knew we would have to take risks," the Italian coach said. "We also knew we would create chances and the important thing was to capitalise on them. Unfortunately we did not do that. But you have to be realistic. Over the two legs United did a bit more than us and probably deserved their victory."

Ferguson admitted he had been relieved to see Daniele de Rossi blast a first-half penalty over the bar. "We had our moments in the first 25 minutes when their goalkeeper made four fantastic saves," said the Scot. "But obviously the penalty would have made a big difference.

"But it is a European quarter-final and Roma are second in the Italian league. You would expect them to create something."

United should have killed the match by taking at least one of the five clear chances they created in the first five minutes, the most glaring miss coming from Ryan Giggs who tamely side-footed Owen Hargreaves's perfectly-judged cross straight at Doni, the Roma keeper.

United were grateful to Edwin van der Sar for keeping out shots from Mirko Vucinic, Mancini and Simone Perrotta but their biggest let-off came when de Rossi blasted his penalty high into the Stretford End after Wes Brown had tripped Mancini inside the box.

United continued to flirt with danger after the interval but, with just over 20 minutes left, the home supporters were relieved of any lingering tension about the outcome of the evening when Tevez glanced a Hargreaves cross past Doni.

The Argentinian was rewarded with an ovation that was only slightly less enthusiastic than the one accorded to Eric Cantona when the stadium announcer revealed the presence of the United legend at half-time.

The United fans were on their feet again with ten minutes left but that was only to mark club captain Neville's entry to the fray for his first appearance in a United shirt in 13 months.(source: yahoo/afp)