Matchday Six of the UEFA Champions League (UCL) Fantasy Game brought the group stages to a close with an almighty crash. What follows are our talking points as sixteen sides progressed, eight dropped into the Europa League, while the rest packed their suitcases and said their goodbyes for another season…
Barcelona’s kids are a first team in their own right
Pep Guardiola already knew that his side were not only through to the knockout stages but had guaranteed themselves top spot in their group. As a result, the manager afforded himself the opportunity to rest most of his first team ahead of an all-important El Clasico in Madrid this week.
Alan Hansen famously once said “you don’t win anything with kids” but, if the recent crop to have come through La Masia are anything to go by, then the result at the Nou Camp was just the first of a generation of potential results as Barcelona were comfortable 4-0 victors over BATE Borisov.
World Cup winner Pedro was the man of experience leading from the front; he grabbed 2 goals while recent breakthrough Isaac Cuenca set up a pair and won a penalty himself. All this before mentioning Thiago pulling the strings in midfield, as well as fellow European Under 21 Championship winner Martin Montoya keeping a clean sheet and notching a goal, too.
All that and an abundance of young talent on the field around them. There must be something in the water in Barcelona.
Group G belies expectations for one last time
Heading into the final round of the group stages we knew only one thing for certain and that was Shakhtar Donetsk were the only of the sides in the group with nothing left to play for.
The results (FC Porto 0-0 Zenit and APOEL 0-2 Shakhtar) went against all expectations. Porto pushed and pushed for the goal they needed but just weren’t able to breach the opposition back-four, with 21 recovered balls for Lombaerts indicative of the almighty defensive effort that Zenit produced.
FC APOEL can perhaps be accused of being caught napping after becoming the first Cypriot side to qualify for the Champions League stages last Matchday but, even with Luiz Adriano and Yevhen Seleznyov scoring against them, they find themselves top of the group and sailing right through until February.
Channel five just won the footballing lottery
Goals from David Silva and Yaya Toure helped Manchester City record a comfortable 2-0 victory over a second string Bayern Munich side, as Roberto Mancini’s side tried valiantly to keep their debut Champions League dream alive. Their fate was rather out of their own hands, however, and a 2-0 victory away at Villarreal for Napoli ended the Citizens’ hopes of advancing. As twitter behemoth OptaJoe pointed out, City were unfortunate to be the first side in four years to reach double points and not qualify for the knockout stages.
The big shock of the night involved their rivals from across the city. Manchester United traveled to FC Basel knowing they needed just a draw to make the knockout stages but with Nemanja Vidic stretched off in the first half, Fergie’s side succumbed to a 2-1 defeat that will reverberate around Europe.
United have gone from Champions League finalists to being knocked out of the group stages by a (wholly deserving) Swiss side in the space of six short months. They were outplayed and outwitted by Basel and, despite a late Phil Jones goal inspiring a potential late comeback, they ultimately fell short. Just two victories, both against Romanian outfit Otelul Galati, were all that United were able to muster across a disparate campaign. The Europa League is a wholly unexpected and stark reality for a club of this size but the results on the table haven’t been good enough to argue against it being anything other than fair. If not entirely shocking.
With Birmingham and Spurs all but set to depart the Europa League, the powers that be over at Channel 5 will be popping champagne knowing that Manchester United and Manchester City will be their replacements in waiting in their live fixture schedule.
The French contingent don’t give up and surrender easily
Lyon headed into Tuesday night knowing that they had a monumental uphill struggle on their hands. The French side needed to beat Dinamo Zagreb as well as hoping Real Madrid’s “second string” would beat Ajax at the Amsterdam Arena. They also needed a difference of at least seven goals to come from these results.
At the half-way stage of their trip to Croatia, Jose Mourinho’s men had done much of their part as Jose Callejon and Gonzalo Higuiain put Madrid two goals to the good (in a game which ended 0-3 with a late second Callejon strike), Lyon were drawing 1-1 and looked on all counts to fall that little bit short. Three quick goals after half-time and all of a sudden Lyon supercharged their way into the knockout stages in what eventually turned out to be a 7-1 away victory, with Bafetimbi Gomis grabbing himself the quickest hat-trick in Champions League history as part of a four goal haul.
Stunning stuff. Accusations of some strange goings on have already started to creep up from those who dare stick their heads above the parapet.
The previous night their compatriots Marseille showed similar spirit to recover an unlikely victory from the jaws of defeat and live to fight another day in the Champions League. Travelling to Dortmund, the Jekyll and Hyde side of France knew that a victory at the German champions would guarantee them a place in the impending draw.
Eight-four minutes in and 2-1 down, all money would have been on Olympiakos (cruising to victory over Arsenal) nabbing the second spot in Group F. Instead, two late goals from Andre Ayew and substitute Mathieu saw Didier Deschamps’ side snatch a sensational last-gasp victory. The last sixteen now beckons for both sides.
Getting knocked out could be the best thing to happen to some sides
It was, in fact, Ligue 1 champions Lille who failed to follow the national pattern as they stumbled in the easiest of the three fixtures the trio of French sides faced in the final Matchday. A win at home to Trabzonspor would have seen Rudi Garcia’s team join Marseille and Lyon in the knockout stages but, sadly, it was not to be.
Instead, a lacklustre 0-0 draw saw Joe Cole and co not only out of the Champions League but out of Europe entirely, as CSKA’s victory away at Inter saw them push Lille down into fourth place in their group.
While no-one in the region of Lille will be celebrating last night’s results, the simple fact remains that they now have the extra time needed in their attempt to defend the Ligue 1 title over their main challengers of the Qatari rich outfit at PSG. Similar thoughts will be ringing around the heads of fans of the aforementioned Borussia Dortmund. The reigning German champions, by virtue of coming last in Group F, will now spend their midweeks in spring trying to keep Bayern Munich’s hands off the Bundesliga title for a second season running.
One could even argue that the potentially lackadaisical approach we may see in the Europa League this next year could afford both Manchester United and City even more leeway over their rivals in the fight for the 2011/12 Premier League title. Though there is without any doubt this end result was not on any master plan for either Roberto Mancini or Sir Alex Ferguson.
Congratulations to Bayern Munich, Napoli, Inter Milan, CSKA Moscow, Benfica, FC Basel, Real Madrid, Lyon, Chelsea, Bayer Leverkusen, Arsenal, Marseilles, FC APOEL, Zenit St. Petersburg, Barcelona and AC Milan. We’ll be back in the new year to plot all the way through the group stages and onto the final where one of these sixteen sides will be crowned European Champions.
