The balance of power among Italian, Spanish and French clubs in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals hung in the balance last night with only Bologna overwhelming winners.
Bologna beat French side Lyon 3-0 but there was all to play for in the second leg of the three other matches which had 2-1 score-lines.
Roma fell at Atletico Madrid, Marseille beat Celta Vigo at the Stade Velodrome and Bordeaux won at home against Parma.
Two goals from back-to-form Florian Maurice earned Marseille their victory over Celta Vigo. Maurice, who had not scored since December 19th, found the net in the 33rd and 67th minutes with Russian Alexander Mostovoi equalising in the 64th minute.
Marseille saw their early domination pay dividends in the 33rd minute when Christophe Dugarry dispossessed Goran Djorovic on the edge of Vigo's box and passed to Maurice, who fired home.
Mostovoi brought the scores level in the 64th minute when he stroked the ball home after Stephane Porato had been scrambling for the ball at full stretch.
Great work from Robert Pires allowed Maurice to put Marseille back in front three minutes later. He feigned a cross from the right, completely fooling the defender, which left him plenty of time to pick out unmarked Maurice who easily fired past Richard Dutruel.
Atletico Madrid dominated AS Roma but had to settle for a 2-1 win. Romero Jose Mari opened the scoring in the 13th minute and Roberto made it 2-0 just minutes after the restart against a Roma side who failed to create a single clear scoring opportunity.
Midfielder Luigi Di Biagio conjured their goal out of nothing in the 75th minute, blasting a 30 metre free-kick into the roof of Atletico's net to give Roma a chance in the second leg.
Giuseppe Signori all but booked Bologna's place in the last four after engineering a convincing victory over Lyon. The 31-year-old Signori scored a goal in each half and then set up the third for Jonatan Binotto.
Signori, whose team started their UEFA campaign in the Intertoto Cup last summer, said: "We've got the right spirit. We set ourselves this objective at the start of the season and we want to see it right through to the end."
A late goal by Parma's Argentinian striker Hernan Crespo gave his side hope for a semi-final spot following their defeat at Bordeaux.
Johan Micoud and then Sylvain Wiltord put Bordeaux 2-0 up just before the break and everything looked to be going horribly wrong for Parma when skipper Antonio Benarrivo was sent off for his second yellow card with eight minutes to play.
But substitute Crespo, who has scored 15 goals to put him second in Italy's scoring list, did once more what he does best to earn a valuable away goal with seconds of the match remaining.
