A 1-0 home leg win over Juventus leaves record European champions Real Madrid well placed to reach the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
In other action, a brace from Claudio Pizarro helped Bayern Munich down Arsenal 3-1 in a packed Munich Olympic stadium, PSV Eindhoven beat AS Monaco 1-0 and Liverpool continued to save their best perform for Europe, beating Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 at Anfield.
Real dominated from start to finish and should really have added to the solitary goal headed in by Ivan Helguera in the 31st minute.
Even so, local goalkeeper Iker Casillas needed to pull off a pair of sharp saves at the end to deny Juventus what would have been a rather fortunate draw.
”We played really well tonight,” said a breathless Helguera at the end, ”and should have got an even better result.”
Teammate Zinedine Zidane claimed that ”the only thing missing tonight was the second goal”.
Midfielder anchorman Emerson, the only Juve player to talk when leaving the pitch, said that ”they did play well but we could have got a draw”.
Emerson finished with the promise that ”the second leg will be a completely different match”.
Despite losing right-back Michel Salgado to an early injury, Real made an aggressive start. In the 23rd minute, Raul Gonzalez turned a clever Roberto Carlos centre on to the Juve crossbar.
Eight minutes later came the only goal, when Helguera headed in a perfect David Beckham free kick from the left.
Real continued to dominate possession in the second half, with Juventus content to carry on playing on the break, and Gianluigi Buffon had to be on his toes to keep out shots from Ronaldo and Luis Figo.
Walter Samuel nearly made it 2-0 with just more than 10 minutes left, but his header came back off a post. Samuel Vanderlei Luxemburgo’s side still need just a draw from the return leg in Turin on March 9 to progress.
Arsenal, who have yet to get past the quarterfinal stages of the competition under Arsene Wenger, went into the match against the German league leaders Bayern without centre-half Sol Campbell, and the England international was missed from the start.
A simple long kick-out from Oliver Kahn after four minutes caused problems for Arsenal’s Kolo Toure, whose back header failed to reach Jens Lehmann and instead fell to Claudio Pizarro, who made no mistake.
Pizarro got Bayern’s second on 58 minutes when the Arsenal defence failed to pick him up and he headed powerfully past Lehmann from 6m out.
Lehmann failed to reach a Torsten Frings cross on 65 minutes and Hasan Salihamidzic was on hand to make it 3-0. Toure made up for his error near the close, scoring what could be a crucial away goal as the Gunners now need just a 2-0 win at Highbury to progress.
Liverpool continued to make up for a disappointing domestic season, where they lie fifth just outside the Champions League places, with a comfortable 3-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen, a result that leaves Rafael Benitez’s side with one foot in the last eight.
The Reds scored with their first decent opportunity of the game on 15 minutes when Igor Biscan played a perfect ball through for Luis Garcia, who slipped the ball under the approaching Hans-Joerg Butt.
Dimitar Berbatov had a glorious chance to equalise just before the half-hour mark when he was clean through on Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzey Dudek, but he shot wide. Six minutes later, Leverkusen found themselves two down as Jon Arne Riise curled in a free kick from the edge of the area.
Dietmar Hamann looked to have made the tie safe when he made it 3-0 with a free kick in injury time, but Franca got a crucial away goal for Leverkusen just before the final whistle after an error from Dudek.
Meanwhile, Dutch league leaders PSV Eindhoven take a single-goal lead to France after overcoming AS Monaco 1-0.
Brazilian defender Alex scored the only goal of the game after eight minutes when he rose totally unmarked in the area to head home a Mark van Bommel corner. — Sapa-DPA