Chelsea 1 Arsenal 1:
A vital away goal by Frenchman Robert Pires earned Arsenal a 1-1 draw at London rivals Chelsea in the first leg of their all-English Champions League quarter-final last night.
Pires's neat 59th-minute header cancelled out Iceland forward Eidur Gudjohnsen's strike from a tight angle six minutes earlier and put Arsene Wenger's team in pole position to reach the last four for the first time.
Chelsea suffered another heavy blow when captain Marcel Desailly was sent off for a second yellow card offence after 83 minutes, meaning he will miss the return leg at Highbury.
Arsenal are now unbeaten in their last 17 games against Chelsea. The eventual winners of the tie will face either nine-times European champions Real Madrid or Monaco in the semi-finals.
Real Madrid 4 Monaco 2
In the night's other quarter-final Real Madrid recovered from a goal down at halftime to claim a convincing 4-2 victory against Monaco in a pulsating Champions League quarter-final, first leg at the Bernabeu.
Monaco stunned Real when they snatched the lead late in the first half after centre-back Sebastien Squillaci took advantage of hesitation in the Real defence to poke home from close range at the second attempt.
But Real moved up a gear in the second half and equalised seven minutes after the break when substitute centre-back Ivan Helguera bundled in from three metres out after a David Beckham corner had panicked the Monaco defence.
After squandering several good chances to add another goal, Real took the lead when Zinedine Zidane drilled in at the near post after snapping up the rebound from a Luis Figo shot on 70 minutes.
Seven minutes later Figo himself got on the scoresheet to make it 3-1 when he headed in after Monaco keeper Flavio Roma had saved his penalty awarded when Ronaldo had been brought down in the area by Squillaci.
Ronaldo added a fourth when he raced on to a Zidane through ball and shot low past Roma but Monaco gave themselves hope of a second leg fightback when Real old boy Fernando Morientes scored with a terrific header just over a minute later.