AC Milan and Beckham out of UEFA Cup
AC Milan and David Beckham were eliminated from the UEFA Cup on Thursday night, wasting a two-goal lead at home in a 2-2 tie against Germany’s Werder Bremen.
Andrea Pirlo converted a penalty kick in the 27th minute after Beckham’s free kick was blocked by the arm of Torsten Frings on the defensive wall, and Alexandre Pato made it 2-0 six minutes later.
Claudio Pizarro rallied Werder Bremen when he scored on headers in the 68th and 78th minutes. That left the aggregate score 3-3 in the home-and-home series, and Werder Bremen advanced to a fourth-round matchup with Saint-Etienne because it scored more away goals.
In the UEFA Cup rather than the Champions League following a disappointing fifth-place finish in Italy’s Serie A last season, AC Milan had hoped to win the less prestigious tournament for the first time. The traditional Italian power is a seven-time European Cup champion.
Udinese was the only one of four Italian teams to progress, beating visiting Lech Poznan 2-1 to advance on 4-3 aggregate. Sampdoria lost at Metalist Kharkiv 2-0 and was eliminated 3-0; and Fiorentina tied 1-1 at Ajax Amsterdam and was eliminated 2-1.
England will also have just one representative in the round of 16 after Aston Villa and two-time UEFA Cup winner Tottenham fielded weakened starting lineups and were knocked out by 3-1 margins.
Villa allowed two second-half goals and was beaten 2-0 at 2005 champion CSKA Moscow. Giovani Dos Santos scored his first goal for Tottenham, which was looking ahead to Sunday’s League Cup final against Manchester United and tied 1-1 at home against Shakhtar Donetsk.
Craig Bellamy scored twice as Manchester City beat Copenhagen 2-1 to advance on 4-3 aggregate.
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England
HULL, England - Hull beat Sheffield United 2-1 to reach the quarterfinals of England’s FA Cup for the first time since 1971.
Hull has won just one of its past 17 Premier League matches but went ahead in the 24th minute of the fifth-round replay when Blades defender Kyle Naughton headed into his own goal. Billy Sharp equalized six minutes later but Peter Halmosi scored 11 minutes into the second half to earn a meeting with Arsenal or Burnley.
In other quarterfinals, scheduled for the weekend of March 7-8, Chelsea is at Coventry, Middlesbrough at Everton and Premier League leader Manchester United at Fulham.
