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Manchester United win the Champions League 6-5 on penalties after the first all-English final finished 1-1 after a dramatic 120 minutes of action on a rainy night in Moscow. Edwin van der Sar made the crucial save for United and Didier Drogba was sent off in extra time.

Substitute Nicholas Anelka’s spot-kick was saved by Edwin van der Sar to hand United victory, after Chelsea captain John Terry had struck the post with his penalty — when a goal would have taken the trophy to London for the first time in its history.

Earlier, with the teams locked together 2-2 on penalties, United talisman Cristiano Ronaldo had seen his penalty saved by Peter Cech, handing Chelsea the advantage.

But Terry’s dramatic miss, with the central defender seeming to slip as he took his kick, took the shoot-out into sudden death.

The match itself proved an epic with United having the best of the first 45 minutes.

Ronaldo, switched to the left flank, was causing all sorts of problems for makeshift right-back Michael Essien and in the 15th minute he produced a great cross which just evaded the leap of Owen Hargreaves.

But the warning was there for Chelsea and, just 11 minutes later, Ronaldo again showed why he is the most coveted player in the world by giving United the lead with his 42nd goal of the season.

A superb one-two on the right wing between Wes Brown and Paul Scholes resulted in Brown delivering a delightful cross deep into the box, where Portuguese international Ronaldo comfortably outjumped Essien to plant his header into the bottom corner, leaving keeper Peter Cech stranded.

The goal stirred Chelsea into life and they nearly levelled in the 32nd minute with their first serious goal-scoring chance.

Frank Lampard’s cross from the left was nodded back across the area by Didier Drogba. United captain Rio Ferdinand, under pressure from Michael Ballack, headed towards goal and it needed a superb reflex save from Edwin Van der Sar to stop Chelsea equalizing.

The match was proving a great advertisement for the Premier League — and only a magnificent double save from Cech prevented United from doubling their lead just a minute later.

The tireless Wayne Rooney picked up possession in his own half and launched a magnificent crossfield ball for Ronaldo, who controlled and sent in a teasing cross for the onrushing Carlos Tevez.

The Argentine striker’s header was pushed away by Cech and the ball eventually broke for Michael Carrick — only for the Chelsea goalkeeper to again produce a match-saving stop.

United continued to dominate possession and with four minutes of the half remaining, the superb Rooney produced another tantalising cross from the right which the covering Claude Makelele missed completely. Tevez was lurking behind but his despairing lunge also failed to connect with the goal gaping.

However, with just a minute left of the half, Chelsea brought the scores level with an unlikely equalizer. A long-range shot from Essien took a couple of deflections and fell beautifully to Lampard, whose run into the box had not been covered by the United defense.

With Van der Sar slipping at an inopportune moment for United, Lampard was left with a simple chance to slide the ball home.

The goal prompted an emotional celebration as the England midfielder pointed to the heavens in a tribute to his mother Pat, who died earlier this month.

If United dominated the first half, then the second period belonged to their opponents as Chelsea, bouyed by Lampard’s goal, looked a different side after the break.

Essien, given a nightmare first 45 minutes by Ronaldo, started turning the tables on his tormentor with regular forays into the United half.

The Ghanaian nearly put Chelsea ahead in the 54th minute when he powered forward, turned inside Ronaldo and fired towards goal. But the shot, with his weaker left foot, flew over the crossbar.

Chelsea continued to press forward with a succession of attacks and corners, but failed to turn their possession into goalmouth opportunites.

With United’s defense holding firm, a moment of inspiration was needed by either side — and that was provided by Didier Drogba who nearly scored one of the great Champions League final goals with 13 minutes remaining.

The Ivory Coast striker collected the ball 20 meters out and curled a delightful shot past van der Sar, only to see the left-hand post keep the effort out.

United were beginning to look weary, with Ferdinand seeming to be troubled by cramp. With Rooney and Ronaldo having less impact than the first 45 minutes, Tevez was proving their main threat and his 81st minute strike flew just over the crossbar.

As extra time loomed, Joe Cole began to have more influence on the Chelsea right, and his cross with four minutes left found an onrushing Drogba, who fired wide.

Chelsea continued to call the shots in extra time and they nearly took the lead with a superb move three minutes into the added period.

Ashley Cole and Ballack combined, for the German international to play a delightful ball to Lampard, whose superb shot on the turn struck the underside of the bar before bouncing to safety.

With the rain starting to get heavier fatigue began to set in, with players dropping like flies, suffering from cramp on a pitch which had held up surprisingly well despite the controversy beforehand.

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson brought on Ryan Giggs for fellow-veteran Paul Scholes to hand the Welshman his 759th appearance for the club, breaking Sir Bobby Charlton’s long-standing club record.

And the 34-year-old nearly capped that extraordinary achievement with the winning goal in the 10th minute of extra time.

Left-back Patrice Evra somehow found some reserves of energy to burst into the box. His cut-back was perfect for Giggs, but Terry somehow reacted to head the ball clear and avert a certain goal.

As the game headed towards penalties tempers began to flare and with four minutes to go a bust-up near the touchline resulted in Drogba being sent off for slapping United defender Nemanja Vidic in the face.

But Chelsea’s 10-men held on to take the match to penalties, where United proved victorious to win the cup for a third time in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Munich air crash.

Rafael Benitez has moved to bolster Liverpool’s local links by bringing homegrown former midfielder Sammy Lee back to the club as his assistant manager.

Lee, 49, who was sacked as Bolton manager in October 2007, returns to his native city following the departure earlier this month of first-team coach Alex Miller to take up a management job in Japan.

As a former player with Liverpool Lee won the title, the League Cup and European Cup during the 1980s before taking on a role as reserve coach and then first-team coach at the club under Graeme Souness and Gerard Houllier.

Benitez, who has not had anyone with the formal title of assistant manager since his compatriot Paco Ayesteran left shortly after the start of the season just gone.

Zenit became the second Russian team in four seasons to win Europe’s No. 2 club tournament, getting a pair of second-half goals in a 2-0 win Wednesday night.

A Russian fan was stabbed outside the stadium, police said, but had non-life threatening injuries. Police said six men were arrested for serious assault, but did not provide details.

Manchester police blamed excessive alcohol consumption for the “isolated pockets of disorder.” Even so, police said the day was “largely peaceful” despite several police officers and fans injured during skirmishes.

About 100,000 fans watched on giant screens in downtown Manchester. Eight fans were arrested before the match, and violence broke out when one screen broke down 15 minutes before kickoff.

“As a result, a small number of supporters — who until that point had been largely well-behaved and had been enjoying the carnival atmosphere — became frustrated and started to pelt the screen with beer bottles,” Manchester Police said in a statement. “Council workers attempted to repair the screen, however these attempts failed and supporters, many of which had been drinking heavily for a number of hours, became increasingly frustrated.”

MILAN, May 13 (Reuters) - AS Roma fans look certain to be banned from Sunday’s final Serie A soccer match at Catania although title rivals Inter Milan can take supporters to their game at Parma, authorities said on Tuesday.

Inter lead Roma by one point heading into the final weekend of the season with the two games also crucial for the bottom end of the table. Catania are just two points above third-bottom Parma, who occupy the last relegation place.

Fan violence has marred the Italian game in recent years with a policeman being killed in riots outside a match in Catania in February last year.

Sven-Goran Eriksson has publicly admitted for the first time that he could be leaving Manchester City at the end of the season.

Ahead of City’s final game of the season, at Middlesbrough on Sunday, Eriksson declined to go into any detail about his future after it emerged that the club’s owner Thasksin Shinawatra wants to replace him.

But he did acknowledge that his time at City could be over. “It is a possibility, of course it is,” said the former England boss.

“It is not a secret to anyone in the world of football. But we will see, nothing is confirmed. Let’s play the last game and have a little bit of patience. The fact is we will probably know next week.”

Eriksson admitted earlier this week that he was considering an offer to take over as head coach at Benfica, a role he has twice filled successfully in the past.

But he is understood to have a preference for remaining in England or moving to Italy.

Thaksin has grown disillusioned with Eriksson over the course of a season which City started very strongly only to fade over the second half of the campaign.

The club nevertheless is on track to secure a place in the UEFA Cup next season after England was granted an extra place for topping European football’s Fair Play league.

Barring a rash of bookings in the Middlesbrough match, that place will go to City as they currently top England’s Fair Play league.

City are on course to finish Eriksson’s first season in charge at least ninth in the Premier League table, a significant improvement on their 14th-placed finish to the 2006-07 campaign.

Just another day in paradise – Brendan Gallagher reports on how Hurricane Ivan failed to destroy rugby in the Caymans

Everywhere you go in Grand Cayman the conversation quickly turns to Hurricane Ivan - not least down at the Rugby Club which was all but blown away and washed away itself. Considering the strongest hurricane ever to hit the southern Caribbean was only three and half years ago the Caymans Union have done a remarkable job in first surviving and then flourishing to the extent they could stage the opening World Cup qualifying tournament for 2011.

It was on the night Sep 10 that Ivan – a full blown Category Five Hurricane – pinballed off the southern Jamaican coast and changed its direction by 180 degrees. It was, suddenly, and unexpectedly heading for the Caymans but hurricanes are like that, capricious and unpredictable.

To an extent the Caymans were prepared. By Caribbean standards they are wealthy and privileged. Their hurricane shelters can take 10,000 souls – there were probably 40,000 people on the island though – and its people understand about Hurricanes. They have more than any inhabited place on earth – on every 2.23 years on average – but never one remotely in the league of Ivan. Category Fives rarely make such a direct landfall, they normally rage as tempests out to sea and you just batten don the hatches for a couple of days before resuming life in paradise.

Not so this time. As Sep 11 dawned the full force of nature was let loose on Grand Cayman. For 36 hours storm force winds or above raged as Ivan – the size of Texas – moved slowly through. At its height there was one five hour period when the wind speed never dropped below 155mph.

“I’ve never been in a War but I would imagine that’s what it was like. The wind as like bombs landing and smashing into walls, it was difficult to hear yourself talk let alone make yourself heard to your mates,” reflects Caymans RFC President Derek Haines who as chief Superintendent of Police – he used to head up Britain’s anti-doping unit in the Caribbean – effectively ran the island in the hours, weeks and months that followed. Not so long ago he was invited to Buckingham Palace to be suitably rewarded by a grateful monarch.

Nearly 70 percent of all buildings were destroyed, 85 percent of building received major damage, the flood surge put most of the island temporarily under water and it has cost £3 billion in Insurance money to rebuild this Caribbean paradise. The reconstruction has been a minor miracle, only in parts of china are houses and offices going up back up so quickly.

“It was the once in a lifetime hurricane that many regions in this area suffer and this time it was our turn,” continues Derek. “At the time it was a minor miracle that only two people died directly as a result of Ivan but in the weeks that followed we had many more death from elderly people dying of heart attacks – probably at the stress of it all – and a number of domestic accidents as the island virtually camped out for weeks and months.

“One bizarre occurrence is that the flood surge swamped a number of our cemeteries and corpses – old and recently buried – were floating around the place which was pretty unsettling. For a short while e thought we had a much bigger human disaster on our hands but we very quickly realized what had happened.”

Grand Cayman is polite and god fearing but even so the threat of looting was present in George Town and on once occasion Haines – a splendidly laconic former Leicester Tiger who used to serve with Dean Richards and John Wells in the Police and play with the Peter Wheeler generation - brandished a gun and “deputized” his University student son on the spot to ward off those up to no good. As somebody who spent much of his working day tracking down Colombian Drugs barons this, professionally speaking, was just another admittedly very unusual day in the office. Needless to say the would be looters soon got the message

“Sometimes it seems a long time ago and someday I wake up and it is still happening,” says Haines. “I’ll tell yo one thing. It is a huge wake-up call and makes you realize exactly how lucky you are to have what you have. The Rugby club – we actually have the islands five clubs based at the one ground – has been a great centre of normality and good cheers as the island has got itself back together. The arrival of the World Cup itself and the excitement of being involved in the first game is a wonderful reward for a lot of good rugby people.”

The UEFA European Championship will be held from June 7 to June 29 in Austria and Switzerland.

Eli Manning, New York Giants quarterback,  married college sweetheart Abby McGrew during a sunset ceremony Saturday at the One & Only Palmilla resort on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.

Both the New York Daily News and the New York Post covered the event, with the Daily News providing details from inside the intimate ceremony.

Manning, 27, and McGrew, 24, smiled and giggled during the 16-minute ceremony. They stood on a platform in the sand as waves crashed on the rocks behind them.

Manning and McGrew met as students at the University of Mississippi. Manning popped the question to her during a date in Hoboken last March, and they chose the resort for their wedding after vacationing there several times, the Daily News reported.

McGrew carried a bouquet of white roses and wore a white gown with gold embroidering with a large bow and short train in the back. Her six bridesmaids wore champagne-colored strapless dresses.

Manning and his groomsmen wore khaki suits and white roses in their lapels. Manning wore a tie with blue and white stripes, while his groomsmen kept their collars open.

Moments before the ceremony, Eli Manning’s brother Peyton, the Indianapolis Colts’ star quarterback, wrapped his arm around his brother and whispered words of encouragement to him.

The Daily News reported that the minister looked down at Eli Manning’s hands during the ceremony and joked that they were “quite large.”

Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon declined to discuss the wedding when contacted Sunday by the Associated Press. Phone messages for Manning’s agent Tom Condon and his Giants teammate Shaun O’Hara weren’t immediately returned.

Manning has been with the Giants since 2004 and was this year’s Super Bowl MVP, leading the Giants to their 17-14 upset victory against the New England Patriots. Manning threw 19 of 34 for 255 yards and two touchdowns, including a 13-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds to play.

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