Julio Cesar's heroics help hosts settle for an entertaining goalless draw
Julio Cesar's heroics help hosts settle for an entertaining goalless draw
Inter Milan survived a Manchester United onslaught to hold the holders to a 0-0 draw at San Siro in the Champions League last 16 first-leg match yesterday.
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It was a result that will probably have pleased neither manager, although Sir Alex Ferguson will have been most miffed at how his team failed to score though they did come away with the Champions League record for games without defeat as it reached 20.
"I hope not scoring a goal doesn't come back to bite us," said the Scot.
"However, I think we deserved to win. We played very well. They gave us 15-20 minutes of pressure as we expected in the second-half.
"But we showed good composure and maturity. The players enjoyed playing in that kind of atmosphere."
But Ferguson insisted that despite the missed opportunity, United were still in a good position to progress.
"There's obviously disappointment we haven't won the game for sure," he said.
"The second leg is at Old Trafford and with our record there we must have a good chance to win the match and that's what we need to do, to win the match in front of own fans.
"We're capable of doing that, the game isn't finished but we've given ourselves a chance of doing that."
There was no doubt as to who was the man of the match: Inter goalkeeper Julio Cesar.
Inter coach Jose Mourinho was delighted with the Brazilian.
Out of the world
"Julio Cesar was fantastic, in the first half he made two or three great saves and that was important for the team," he said before admitting he was satisfied with the result.
"When I won the Champions League (with Porto in 2004) we drew 0-0 at home in the semi-final and then won away to Deportivo (La Coruna).
"It's a result that the team who plays at home in the second leg is happy with because they know if they win (at home) they are in the quarter-finals.
"But for us it was an important result, we didn't want to go to United with a deficit because they had intensity and speed that we didn't have."
He had said before the game that his team had no fear and that United would not try to win the game but it took only five minutes to demonstrate that that was not the case.
United took control from the kick off and dominated so totally in the opening 45 minutes that Ferguson must have been more than just disappointed in turning around goalless at the break.
What had seemed like a cautious team selection with Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez on the bench proved anything but with Ryan Giggs excellent in the hole behind Dimitar Berbatov.
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