• For the first time since the round of 16 was introduced to the UEFA Champions League, in 2003/04, all eight group winners progressed to the quarter-finals. • For the second season running Spain will have three quarter-final representatives. Like last year, that is more than any other country, the numbers being made up this term by England (two clubs), Germany (two) and France (one). It means that Spain have moved ahead of England in the all-time quarter-final appearance rankings with 36 representativesto 35. • This is only the fourth time in 20 seasons, and the first since 2008/09, that Italy do not have a team in the last eight. • Manchester United FCs comeback win against Olympiacos FC enabled them to join FC Bayern München as the club with most appearances in the last eight, 13 apiece. FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF have both reached the quarter-finals 12 times. • Barça are now on a run of seven straight quarter-final participations, equalling the competition record set by Manchester United from 1996/97–2002/03 and matched by Real Madrid a year later. • United will become the first club to reach 200 UEFA Champions League matches when they play the second leg of their quarter-final. Real Madrid will become the second club to reach that milestone if they go all the way to the final in Lisbon. • FC Schalke 04s 3-1 defeat at Real Madrid was their 50th UEFA Champions League match. They became the 34th club to attain the half-century. • Petr Čech made his 100th UEFA Champions League appearance in Chelsea FCs 2-0 home win against Galatasaray AŞ. His tally includes 88 for Chelsea, the other 12 being made with AC Sparta Praha. His Chelsea colleague Frank Lampard is on 99 appearances, all of them for the one club, while Cristiano Ronaldo is also now one short of the century, 52 of his outings having been made with Manchester United and 47 with Real Madrid. • Ryan Giggss appearance against Olympiacos was his 140th in the competition, the most for any single club and now just two behind the all-time record held by Raúl González. Xavi Hernández is also challenging Giggs for top spot with 139 appearances, all for Barcelona. • Lionel Messis goal at home to Manchester City FC was his 67th in the UEFA Champions League, taking him past Raúl as the top goalscorer for a single club. He is still four short of Raúls aggregate total, however. • Cristiano Ronaldos double at home to Schalke lifted his goal tally for the 2013/14 UEFA Champions League to 13, just one behind the all-time record for a single season, set by Messi in 2011/12. Prior to the quarter-finals in that campaign the Barcelona striker had scored 12 times, so Ronaldos haul is a record for this stage of the competition. • Samuel Etoo and Kaká took their all-time UEFA Champions League goal tallies to 30 on matchday eight while Robin van Persies hat-trick for Manchester United against Olympiacos, his first in the competition, lifted his cumulative haul to 25. • Van Persies hat-trick was the sixth scored by a United player in the UEFA Champions League. He follows in the footsteps of Andrew Cole (who achieved the feat twice), Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy – who scored four in the November 2004 defeat of AC Sparta Praha – and Michael Owen. At 27 minutes between the first and third goal, Van Persies was the fastest treble. • Uniteds 3-0 victory over Olympiacos enabled them to become only the sixth club to win a knockout tie after coming back from a first-leg deficit of two or more goals. Only once previously had a club recovered from that position without the benefit of an away goal – Barcelona against AC Milan in the 2012/13 round of 16. # UCLFACT
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 19:54:26 +0000
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