There was no fairytale Old Trafford return for David Beckham as Wayne Rooney led Manchester United cruised into the Champions League quarter-finals with a 4-0 rout of AC Milan.
Rooney scored a goal in each half to take his tally for the season to 30 and snuff out any chance AC Milan had of crowning Beckham's appearance against his former club in glory.
Instead, the joy was all the hosts' as Park Ji-sung ran on to Paul Scholes' pass to widen the gap before Darren Fletcher headed a fourth near the end.
Always one to embrace a sense of occasion, Beckham was among the last Milan players to leave the dressing room, making his entrance to a standing ovation from supporters who never fell out of love with him the way Sir Alex Ferguson did.
Predictably though, Beckham had been left on the bench, just as he was on his last European appearance for United, against Real Madrid seven years ago, when he eventually scored twice to prove a point without being able to save the Red Devils from elimination.
That night, Ronaldo - the Brazilian one - scored a hat-trick for Real. Now United has its own hero, and Ferguson has a world-class striker.
It seems to have been a quiet period for Rooney. That was just because he did not play at Wolves on Saturday.
As Ferguson has been known to engage in the odd bout of kidology, the extent of the knee injury that kept England's star striker out of the Molineux encounter will never be known. He sure was not going to miss out here though.
His two goals in the San Siro three weeks ago turned a tie on its head that appeared to be floating out of United's reach. His latest effort merely rammed another nail in Milan's coffin.
Meanwhile, Real Madrid's dreams of a Champions League final at its Bernabeu home were crushed by Lyon as the Spanish giants were knocked out at the last-16 stage for the sixth successive season.
Cristiano Ronaldo's seventh Champions League goal of the season gave Madrid the perfect early start as he netted after just six minutes to level up the aggregate scores at 1-1.
However, Madrid failed to make the most of a host of first-half chances and it paid the cost as Miralem Pjanic smashed home a 75th-minute equaliser for Lyon to send Manuel Pellegrini's men crashing out.