Man United, AC Milan through to quarters

United also completed the double over the Italian champions following their 2-1 home win last week to maintain their 100 per cent record in Group D With 12 points from four matches.

Juventus and Deportivo Coruna, who beat Basel 1-0 in Spain, are second and third on four points, with Basel (3) still in contention.

Milan also won their fourth successive match in Group C to ensure their berth in the last eight with a 1-0 win over Lokomotiv Moscow, a repeat of their victorious scoreline over the Russians in Milan last week.

But Real needed a stoppage time goal to draw 1-1 at Borussia Dortmund in the same group and stay in second place.

Milan top the Group C table with 12 points, followed by Real (5), Dortmund (4) and Lokomotiv (1).

United’s stunning 3-0 win in Turin — where Juve had kept aclean sheet for seven successive Champions League matches — was inspired by Ryan Giggs who came on as an eighth minute substitute for the injured Uruguayan striker Diego Forlan.

Giggs, whose form has suffered in recent weeks and is the subject of some transfer speculation linking him with a move to Inter Milan at the end of the season, opened the scoring after a great build-up by his team mates after 15 minutes.

He then scored a superb solo goal after dribbling from the halfway line in the 41st minute to set up only United’s second-ever win in Italy. The first came when they won 3-2 at Juventus in a semi-final second leg in 1999.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, who replaced the injured Giggs early in the second half, made it 3-0 after 63 minutes to take his tally in the Competition Proper this season to 10 — and 12 overall including the qualifying round.

He also joined Alessandro Del Piero of Juventus and PatrickKluivert of Barcelona on 28 goals — the joint second-highest scorers in the competition’s history.

Raul of Real Madrid is the highest scorer with 39 goals — but he drew a blank on Tuesday as Real needed a late-late goal from Javier Portillo to steal a point in Germany.

Real, who only picked up one point from their opening two group games, moved up from last place to second spot after beating Dortmund last week in Madrid, and looked like heading out of the qualifying positions again after Jan Koller struck with a fierce angled shot after 22 minutes to give the German side the lead.

Last week Koller also scored Dortmund’s opener against Real, but the champions came back to win 2-1. This time Real left their comeback until two minutes into stoppage time when Portillo struck the equaliser.

AC Milan got a red-letter day in Champions League history underway with an early kickoff in Moscow where Rivaldo scored the only goal from the penalty spot after 34 minutes.

The four matches on Tuesday took the number of games in the competition to 1,000 and it was fitting that United, who produced the best performance and result, are now top of the all-time Champions League points table.

The competition continues on Wednesday with matches in Groups A and B. (Reuters)