Monaco and Atletico progress in Europe

Atletico Madrid and Monaco sneaked into the quarter-finals of the Champions League at the expense of Bayer Leverkusen and Arsenal.

Atletico - who were the losing finalists last season - beat Leverkusen 3-2 on penalties after a 1-0 home win had given a 1-1 aggregate stalemate.

In Monte Carlo, Monaco crept through on the away goals rule with a 3-3 aggregate despite losing 2-0 at home to Arsenal, on goals from Oliver Giroud and Aaron Ramsey.

Arsenal needed just one more goal to go through but failed to find it in a frenetic finale.

Monaco took full advantage of having surprisingly won the first leg 3-1 in London three weeks ago.

"We've always gone out to Bayern Munich and Barcelona at this stage but no disrespect to Monaco, we thought we'd have a good opportunity to qualify but we gave ourselves a tough test from the first leg," said Arsenal's scorer Ramsey.

Ramsey's teammate Per Mertesacker was quick to congratulate Monaco, saying: "The best team went through. Monaco deserved it because they played much better in the first leg. We played well today but it was a massive deficit, and it wasn't enough tonight."

In Madrid, Atletico edged Leverkusen 3-2 on penalties, with veteran Stefan Kiessling missing the vital kick for the Germans.

Atletico won the match 1-0 to give a 1-1 aggregate.

Mario Suarez levelled the tie for Atletico by making it 1-0 in the 27th minute with a left-foot drive which took a wicked deflection off Leverkusen defender Omer Toprak.

Atletico reached the final last season only to lose agonisingly 4-1 to neighbours Real Madrid.