History On United's Side In Belgium

The omens look good for Manchester United ahead of the Champions League qualifier with Club Brugge on Wednesday.

The Reds have progressed on each of the four occasions a two-goal lead has been taken into an away knock-out tie in Europe with three of them coming in the continent's premier competition.

In 1968, en route to lifting the European Cup for the first time in the club's history, Brian Kidd's late strike handed Matt Busby's team a 2-0 advantage heading into the second leg with Gornik Zabrze. Despite a 1-0 defeat in Poland, United progressed to the semi-finals.

Some 30 years later, Alex Ferguson's side needed a play-off with LKS Lodz in order to qualify for the Champions League, which would form the third part of the historic Treble at the end of that season. Ryan Giggs and Andy Cole set things up nicely for the away leg, which ended goalless.

Later in the same tournament, at the quarter-final stage, two Dwight Yorke headers sank Inter Milan at Old Trafford before a Paul Scholes equaliser at the San Siro eased the nerves and clinched a 3-1 aggregate triumph to tee up a semi-final showdown with Juventus.

When the Reds lifted the European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1990/91, Hungarian outfit Pecsi Munkas were defeated 2-0 in the home leg along the way thanks to efforts from Clayton Blackmore and Neil Webb. Brian McClair netted the only goal of the away game.

United's two-goal home leads in European knock-out ties:

1968: Gornik Zabrze 2-0, 0-1 (EC)
1990: Pecsi Munkas 2-0, 1-0 (CWC)
1998: LKS Lodz 2-0, 0-0 (CLQ)
1999: Inter Milan 2-0, 1-1 (CL)

(EC - European Cup, CWC - Cup Winners' Cup, CL - Champions Lge, CLQ - Champions Lge qualifier)