Graphic: The road to Rome

It was not difficult to pick out the Manchester United delegates at yesterday’s Champions League quarter-final draw. They were the ones with a spring in their step, their minds already drifting beyond a trip to Porto, on to a possible date with their old friends from Arsenal in the semi-finals before all roads lead to Rome for the final on May 27, when the European Cup, the fourth leg of the much-discussed quintuple, will surely be secured.

No United player would dare to talk in such terms, of course, with complacency and cockiness prominent among the seven deadly sins in the court of Sir Alex Ferguson, but feelings of giddy excitement must be hard to avoid, particularly if the noises made by the club’s resident bookmaker are anything to go by. Having already paid out on Ferguson’s team to win the Barclays Premier League title, BetFred, United’s official and ever so slightly publicity-hungry betting partner, slashed its odds on the club retaining the Champions League to 7-4 within minutes of the draw, with Fred Done, its co-founder, declaring that “it couldn’t have gone any better for my old mate Sir Alex”. Even Ferguson, the United manager, could not deny that it was “a good draw for us”, with Porto having been regarded widely as the most desirable of quarter-final opponents.

While Liverpool and Chelsea could hardly conceal their disappointment at being drawn against each other for the fifth successive season in the Champions League — and with Barcelona or Bayern Munich lying in wait for the winner of that tie — Ferguson could hardly have wished for a more favourable draw than that which pits them against Porto in the quarter-finals and then Arsenal or Villarreal in the semi-finals. Perhaps the luck that he said they would need to complete an “almost impossible” clean sweep is on their side.

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Neither Porto nor Villarreal should be underestimated — Porto boast a formidable home record, albeit one that tends to be negated by travel sickness — but both appear to represent gentler opposition than that faced by United and Arsenal in the previous round, when they overcame Inter Milan and Roma respectively. Even Portuguese journalists were saying yesterday that Porto have “no chance” of eliminating United, as they did under José Mourinho five years ago, and while Villarreal, under Manuel Pellegrini, have become obdurate opponents in the Champions League, Wenger’s youngsters will be hopeful of securing a semi-final showdown with Ferguson’s team.

Arsenal v United? It would be a compelling encounter, far more so than that promised by yet another pairing of Liverpool and Chelsea. Those teams’ eight confrontations in the Champions League over the previous four seasons — spanning two-legged semi-finals in 2005, 2007 and 2008 and a pair of goalless meetings in the group stage in 2005-06 — have yielded scorelines of (home team first) 0-0, 1-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0, 1-0, 1-1 and 3-2 and, while last season’s semi-final, second leg at Stamford Bridge broke the binary code, most would imagine that this will be a meeting of managerial minds, Rafael Benítez against Guus Hiddink, rather than a feast of expansive football.

With the exception of the final against Chelsea in Moscow last season, United have never faced English opposition in Europe and Ferguson stated yesterday morning, before the draw, that he hoped to avoid such a challenge in the quarter-finals. “The reason you want to avoid the English teams is familiarity,” he said. “When you think about European football, you always think of the Real Madrids, the Barcelonas or the Inter Milans.” Not Porto, then.

In fact, it will be interesting to see what Ferguson has to say about the Portuguese club’s presence in the quarter-finals, given that he has frequently made oblique but nonetheless cutting references to the “Golden Whistle” probe, in which they were investigated over alleged corruption of referees. Uefa, European football’s governing body, initially moved to exclude Porto from this season’s Champions League last summer, only to decide on reflection that the case was not quite as serious as that involving Juventus, who previously served a two-year ban after being found guilty of interfering with referees in Serie A.

United will not relish their trip to the Estádio do Dragão in the second leg if the tie is in the balance, but Porto’s away record, particularly in England, is so poor that Ferguson will hope that his team can get the job done at Old Trafford, as they did 12 years ago when they beat them 4-0 at the same stage of the competition.

Liverpool beat Porto 4-1 in the group stage last season, while Arsenal recorded a 4-0 win this season. For all the quality of the vastly underrated Lucho González and the goal threat of Lisandro López, Porto do not appear to carry anything like the threat they did in 2004 under Mourinho when they eliminated United en route to the final, in which they beat Monaco 3-0.

The success of the underdogs in 2004 has given way to a more predictable tournament in recent seasons, increasingly dominated by the English. Barcelona and Bayern hope to change that, but will not welcome a draw that pitted them against each other, followed by the winners of the Liverpool-Chelsea tie. It could not have worked out better for United, but Ferguson will urge his players to beware complacency and, while Porto are unlikely to stop them, Arsenal, providing that they can get past Villarreal, might just fancy their chances.