Manchester United and Schalke will be lifted by the news that both Roma and Barcelona will be missing key players for their respective Champions League quarterfinal first-leg clashes. Roma will be without talismanic captain Francesco Totti, who tore a muscle against Cagliari over the weekend. “The team loses in percentage terms for the extraordinary things [Totti is] capable of,” Roma coach Luciano Spalletti lamented on Monday. “But I have a lot of confidence that the team will assume the responsibility of picking up the slack, just as they’ve done in the past when we’ve been without our captain.”
Meanwhile, Barcelona will definitely be missing Lionel Messi and Deco, while the status of Samuel Eto’o and Ronaldinho, who both have foot injuries, was uncertain.
The four English teams left in the competition — Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal — come into the Champions League quarterfinals having won over the weekend. La Liga giant Barcelona lost, 3-2, to Real Betis, a result that saw the Catalans fall to third place in the league table, while Roma spurned a chance to cut the deficit at the top of the Italian Serie A, drawing, 1-1, away to Cagliari. The Bundesliga’s Schalke drew also, 0-0, with Karlsruhe, and Fenerbahce beat fellow giant Besiktas, 2-1, to stay atop of the Turkish league.