Chelsea defeated Liverpool 3-2 in extra time on Wednesday in a thrilling game that sends the Blues into the Champions League Final against Manchester United. Chelsea advanced 4-3 on aggregate goals. The game was an emotional one for the Blues after they squandered a 1-0 lead in the second half but Frank Lampard scored the go-ahead goal in extra time. It was the first match for Lampard since his mother died last Thursday.

Frank Lampard scored the penalty spot in the 98th minute. Didier Drogba added his second goal of the match in the 105th minute. “What a character Lamps is to come in on Sunday and train and try and block out what has been a terrible week for him and his family and everyone close to Frank,” Chelsea captain John Terry said. “I’m sure Frank will dedicate the goal to his mum tonight.”

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Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel scored for Liverpool. “I thought we were very close. We played well in the second half, but the third goal killed it,” Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez said. “We had control of the game. We had two chances in extra time and we were in control and we were preventing them from creating.” Drogba scored the game’s first goal in the 33rd minute after nearly scoring a minute earlier. Torres scored the tying goal in the 64th minute for Liverpool.

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On Tuesday Soccer Betting Premier League, Manchester United hosts Barcelona and a win will put them into the Champions League final. Chelsea is in even better position as they host Liverpool on Wednesday, as either a win or a draw will have them advancing. Manchester United is a half goal favorite with a total of 2.5 under at SBG Global against Barcelona. The three-way line has United at -105, Barcelona at +300 at the draw at +220.

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Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson rolled the dice and took a huge gamble on Saturday by resting stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez for Tuesday’s match. He had better hope that his team wins its next two Premier League games and that decision doesn’t come back to haunt him. He also better hope his team wins on Tuesday at home against Barcelona. United is facing injuries to striker Wayne Rooney (hip) and defender Nemanja Vidic (face). “We’ve got to pick ourselves up,” said winger Ryan Giggs, “There’s no bigger game than Barcelona. We want to win the league and we want to reach the Champions League final, and it’s still in our hands.” United is expected to take out Barcelona and advance to the final. Ronaldo was just recently named player of the year for the second straight season and he will be playing with a vengeance on Tuesday after missing a penalty kick in the first leg against Barcelona last week. “I look forward to Tuesday against Barcelona; it is the biggest game of the season in my opinion. If you win, you are in the final,” Ronaldo said, “It is a good motivation for me, for my colleagues, for my friends, everyone. I hope to win and the two league games are very important as well.”

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Chelsea got a very fortunate 1-1 draw at Liverpool in the first leg of the Soccer Betting Champions League semifinals on Tuesday as John Arne Riise scored an injury-time own-goal. Riise’s header went into his own net in the fifth minute of added time. It was a crushing blow for Liverpool who was just minutes away from a 1-0 win. Now Chelsea is the definite favorite to advance to the Champions League Final since they will host the second leg against Liverpool. “At the end, you must be really disappointed,” Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez said. “One minute in the first half, four minutes in the second half. Everyone was really disappointed. In these situations the only think you can do is try to be positive and try to think about the next game and be ready.”

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This is the third time in the last four years that Chelsea and Liverpool have met in the Champions League semifinals. “I think we deserved definitely to get the draw at the end,” Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard said. “They had chances, we had chances. It was a battle and we carried on to the end.” Liverpool actually played better for most of the game and had a number of quality chances. Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech had to turn away Fernando Torres in the 31st minute but Liverpool got their goal in the 42nd minute as Dirk Kuyt was able to get one by Cech. It was the only goal Liverpool was able to get though as Cech denied Torres again in the second half and later stopped Steven Gerrard with a great save to keep it 1-0. “We had the better chances and we know we must play another 90 minutes,” Benitez said. “The team today was working really hard, especially creating chances, and we must do the same away.”

Read more on Soccer News: Chelsea Gets Lucky Draw in Champions League

The Soccer Betting Champions League semifinals begin on Tuesday with first leg action as Liverpool hosts Chelsea. Barcelona plays hosts to Manchester United on Wednesday. Liverpool is led by Fernando Torres who has 30 goals this season including five in the Champions League. He was rested in Saturday’s Premier League win at Fulham so he would be fully fit for Tuesday’s match against Chelsea. “People ask me if I am getting tired now because I am coming to the end of my first season in England,” Torres said. “Of course it is a hard league, but I do not feel tired at all. When you are scoring goals and the team is winning games, you have more energy. It is only when the team is struggling and you are not playing well or scoring goals, that you don’t feel your best.”

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Liverpool has yet to lose in Champions League action. They defeated Arsenal in the quarterfinals. “The emotion I felt after the Arsenal game was very, very strong,” Torres said. “I have never felt like that before. I was almost in tears at the end of the match when the crowd were singing. If that was a quarterfinal, I can’t imagine what it will be like playing Chelsea.”

Soccer Betting Preview: Champions League Semifinals Begin Tuesday

Manchester United dominated Liverpool 3-0 to move five points clear of second place Chelsea in the Soccer Betting Premier League. Wes Brown scored a first half goal while Ronaldo and Nani scored in the second half for United. Liverpool played much of the game without Javier Mascherano who was sent off for arguing.

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Liverpool could not match United in the second half playing with only 10 men. Goalkeeper Pepe Reina played well stopping Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez but United kept the pressure on and after Reina stopped Ronaldo again it resulted in a corner in the 79th minute that Ronaldo headed home. Two minutes later Nani added the third goal.

Chelsea did their part to stay within striking distance of Manchester United getting a huge 2-1 home win against Arsenal. Didier Drogba scored twice in the second half as Chelsea came from behind to win 2-1. Bacary Sagna had given Arsenal the 1-0 lead and the Gunners were looking to end Chelsea’s long winning streak but Drogba took over and saved the Blues.

Read more on Premier League Betting Preview: Manchester United and Chelsea Win

The draw for the quarterfinals of the Soccer Betting Champions League was held on Friday and Arsenal will face Liverpool while Manchester United will play AS Roma. Barcelona takes on Schalke and Chelsea takes on Fenerbahce. The semifinal draw was also held. The winner of Arsenal-Liverpool faces the winner of Chelsea-Fenerbahce. The winner of United-Roma faces the winner of Barcelona-Schalke. The first legs of the quarterfinals are scheduled for Tuesday, April 1st and Wednesday, April 2nd.

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“I think it’s challenging, interesting as well. It’s a good opportunity to be consistent against Liverpool because it’s three very important games for us,” said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, “It’s amazing but not surprising because I have seen that many times.” It would seem from the quarterfinal draw that United and Barcelona would be headed for a great semifinal while Chelsea would face the Liverpool-Arsenal winner. The Liverpool-Arsenal match looks to be a classic test in the quarterfinal round.

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Roberto Mancini said on Tuesday that he will resign as Inter Milan’s coach after the season is over. He has been extremely successful at Inter but after his team lost in the Soccer Betting Champions League against Liverpool he made the announcement. “The next two and a half months will be my last as the manager of the team,” Mancini said, “This is a decision that I had already taken and has nothing to do with the defeat to Liverpool.”

Inter Milan leads Serie A by six points with 11 matches left. Inter has won the last two Italian league titles. Mancini became Inter’s manager in 2004 and led the team to the Italian Cup title in his first season at the helm. Many of the players were surprised by the announcement. “We have just been eliminated form the Champions League and it’s a big delusion for everybody,” Inter striker Julio Cruz said. Inter president Massimo Moratti did not have any comment.

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Tuesday’s match against Liverpool was another disappointing one for Inter as they had to play with 10 men for the last 40 minutes after Nicolas Burdisso was sent off. Fernando Torres scored a second-half goal and Liverpool won 1-0 and 3-0 on aggregate to advance. Inter also had to play the first leg with only 10 men for most of the match after Marco Materazzi was sent off.

Read more on Football News: Inter Milan’s Mancini to Resign

Liverpool Eliminates Inter Milan. Four English Teams in Champions League Quarterfinals.

Liverpool took out Inter Milan on Tuesday in the Soccer Betting Champions League, winning the second leg 1-0 and completing the sweep of the Italian team. With their victory they join three other English teams in the Champions League quarterfinals. Liverpool won the title three years ago against AC Milan.

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Liverpool was not expected to win against Inter Milan who leads the Serie A League. It was expected that Manchester United would win against Lyon and they did. Chelsea didn’t have much trouble with Olympiakos and Arsenal defeated the defending champion, AC Milan. Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said that the Premier League is the best soccer league in the world. “I think the Premier League is the strongest in Europe,” he said, “For a spell it was the Spanish league.

Read more on Four English Teams in Champions League Quarterfinals

Two huge upsets highlighted quarterfinal action in the Soccer Betting FA Cup over the weekend as Barnsley knocked out Chelsea 1-0 as Kayode Odejayi scored the only goal and Portsmouth won 1-0 at Manchester United. The other two quarterfinals had Cardiff defeating Middlesbrough 2-0 and West Brom taking out Bristol 5-1

Although Barnsley was at home against Chelsea most people believe it was one of the greatest upsets ever. “I can’t believe it. We went to Anfield and we put on a show and came away with a result and everybody thought we couldn’t do it again,” said Barnsley manager Simon Davey. “We had a game plan that obviously worked. I’m speechless at the moment. I can’t believe we’ve really done it. We’re in the semifinal of the cup, I’ve never been to Wembley.”

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Looking at the two teams it is hard to see how Chelsea lost the match but they didn’t play with much energy. “I’m very, very disappointed but all the credit to Barnsley,” said Chelsea manager Avram Grant. “They showed a lot of spirit. They won against Liverpool, they won against us so I congratulate them. I’m very sad about this.

Read more on Huge Upsets in FA Cup Quarterfinals

Inter Milan faces the tough task of coming back from two goals down when they host Liverpool in the second leg of a Soccer Betting Champions League quarterfinal on Tuesday.

Liverpool won the first leg 2-0 last week as Dirk Kuyt and captain Steven Gerrard scored. Inter had to play with only 10 men for much of the match when Marco Materazzi was sent off. They will have to play without Materazzi on Tuesday in addition to injured Ivan Cordoba and Walter Samuel. Inter may be getting defender Christian Chivu back on Tuesday though. “I still have pain, but the threshold than I can take has moved considerably higher,” Chivu said. “I will put myself at the disposition of the coach.”

Inter is a half goal favorite with a total of 2.5 under -140 at SBG Global.
The three-way line has Inter -115, Liverpool +270 and the draw at +200.

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Liverpool is trying to make it four English teams in the quarterfinals as Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal are already in.

Read more on Football Betting Preview: Liverpool vs Inter Milan in Champions League