Rooney hurt as Man Utd loses to Bayern Munich 2-1
MUNICH — Wayne Rooney scored an early goal, then limped off with an ankle injury as Manchester United lost to Bayern Munich 2-1 Tuesday night in the first leg of the European Champions League quarterfinals.
Rooney hurt his right ankle near the final whistle, an injury sustained in a challenge from Mario Gomez.
Rooney’s injury, which came 10½ weeks before England’s World Cup opener against the United States on June 12, was to be evaluated Wednesday. He could miss Saturday’s key Premier League game against second-place Chelsea, which trails Manchester United by one point.
“He got a kick in the ankle,” United manager Alex Ferguson said. “We’ll have to wait and see tomorrow.”
Rooney put the visitors ahead in the second minute with his 34th goal for Manchester United this season.
Franck Ribery tied the score in the 77th minute with a free kick that deflected off Rooney and past goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar. Bayern Munich went ahead when Ivica Olic stole the ball from Patrice Evra in injury time, feinted and beat Van der Sar with a side-footed shot.
“Manchester has a very good chance to advance because they scored away — 2-1 is not the best result but we’ve scored a lot of away goals, so we can have some confidence,” Bayern coach Louis van Gaal said. “In the second half, we played excellently and we pressed on until the very end.”
The second leg of the home-and-home, total-goals series is April 7 at Old Trafford. The quarterfinal is a rematch of the famous 1999 final in Barcelona, when Teddy Sheringham Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer scored in injury time to give Manchester United a 2-1 victory.
“We won’t be giving the ball away like we did tonight,” Ferguson said. “We have the away goal and that’s an advantage. We’re good enough to win.”
Ferguson was disappointed.
“We caused our own defeat really,” he said. “We should have played better. We kept giving it away, and it causes your own downfall.”
In the day’s other match, Lisandro Lopez scored twice and Michel Bastos had a goal to lead Lyon over visiting Bordeaux 3-1 Lopez scored in the 10th minute but Marouane Chamakh’s header tied it four minutes later. Bastos scored from a tight angle in the 32nd and Lopez beat goalkeeper Cedric Carrasso with a penalty kick in the 77th.
On Wednesday, Arsenal hosts Barcelona in a rematch of the 2006 final and CSKA Moscow is at Inter Milan.
GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Rangers’ progress to the Scottish League title was held up by a 4-1 loss at St. Johnstone, its first league defeat to the Saints since 1999.
Cillian Sheridan, Chris Millar, Liam Craig and Murray Davidson scored for Saints, and Sasa Papac got the defending champion’s only goal at McDiarmid Park.
American midfielder Maurice Edu was a second-half substitute for Rangers, and fellow U.S. midfielder DaMarcus Beasley didn’t dress.
Rangers (21-2-7) has 70 points and leads second-place Celtic (18-7-6) by 10 points.
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