Bring on our English rivals, says smiling Sir Alex Ferguson

• IAN LADYMAN'S MATCH REPORT: Ronaldo magic steals the show as his 30th goal clinches it for United

Cristiano Ronaldo's 30th goal of a remarkable season knocked out Lyon in front of a 75,502 crowd at Old Trafford for United to equal Juventus' record 10 successive home Champions League wins.

Minutes later Arsenal clinched victory in Milan, and Ferguson said: "If Liverpool get through - and they have a good chance - and Chelsea, as I expect, it's a 40 per cent chance of getting an English team.

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"But I don't think it matters who you play, they are all difficult in the last eight. The important thing is we're through ourselves. Whoever we get, Old Trafford will be bulging. It'll be a fantastic atmosphere."

Ronaldo scored a scrambled 41st-minute winner against the French champions after Carlos Tevez had snatched a crucial late equaliser to make it 1-1 in the first leg.

Ferguson said: "It wasn't his best goal of the season, but it was one of the most important. We were terrific at times but it was on a knife edge. There were nerves because we hadn't killed the game."

Victory kept FA Cup quarter-finalists United on course to repeat their 1999 Treble, but there is no doubt as to the trophy that will mean most to Old Trafford.

Rarely can there have been such a sense of destiny at a football club as that which has taken a hold on United as they once more pursue their Champions League goal.

In this year of all years, winning the European Cup would be seen as almost an act of divine providence as much as the fulfilment of Sir Alex Ferguson's exciting young team.

The Munich air disaster is never - can never - be forgotten at the club where a team perished in that endeavour, but for the trophy to return 50 years after the tragedy would be pure romance.

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Amid all the emotion that poured out last month, when City fans as well as United remembered the fallen with an immaculately observed silence, there was also a sense of determination at the club.

Sir Bobby Charlton, himself a survivor of that terrible day and now United's much-respected elder statesman, was not alone in suggesting that now would be the time to honour their memory in style.

Matt Busby recovered from twice being given the last rites to build a new team, including Charlton, that ten years later put their hands on the holy grail on an electric Wembley night against Benfica.

Ferguson, who has taken up the cause in the fashion that Busby would have continued to admire - playing United football - has already followed 1968 with a European Cup victory of his own.

While it was hardly achieved in the way he would have wished - "football, bloody hell!" was Sir Alex's reaction to the amazing finish that stole victory from Bayern Munich - United were not complaining.

But Ferguson has a keen sense of history to match his admirable managerial qualities, and the Laird of Old Trafford has been determined that the Babes will be honoured in the best way possible.

Rio Ferdinand and his team-mates too have taken up the cause in the wake of the sombre commemoration that left them in no doubt as to the significance of winning this year's tournament.

Ronaldo, Rooney and Co are only too well aware that, since Teddy Sheringham and Ole Solksjaer worked their magic in 1999, all has not gone well in Europe.

United are inevitably seen as a prize scalp for even the other big clubs in the Champions League, and Ferguson's team have not helped themselves by slipping on a few unexpected banana skins.

The most memorable of these was Porto, who were surely one of the recent European champions that Ferdinand dismissed with a wave of contempt in the build-up to last night's second leg.

The Portuguese side were not supposed to present a major problem when they arrived at Old Trafford under the guidance of one Jose Mourinho, who had formerly been Bobby Robson's interpreter.

The alarm bells started to ring when Paul Scholes had what should have been United's second goal ruled out, incorrectly as television replays made perfectly clear to Sir Alex's annoyance.

Denied that strike, United were always vulnerable to the away goal that would see Porto through, and when Tim Howard flapped at a free kick it was Benni McCarthy, now of Blackburn, who was the hero.

Mourinho went on a victory celebration run down the touchline. Now United's Red Army prays that Sir Alex will be doing the same in Moscow come May.