Celtic through to last 16 as Torres finds his boots in Chelsea win
The Champions League group stages have now drawn to a close and teams know whether they will be heading into the final 16, competing in the Europa League or dropping out of Europe all together.
Manchester City fall into that last category as they went down 1-0 at Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday evening, which meant they finished bottom of the group and quite simply were not enough throughout the campaign.
Dortmund on the other hand topped this group and head into the knockout stages full of confidence. Real Madrid will join them, whereas Ajax head into Europe’s second club competition.
Arsenal also lost on their travels, 2-1 to Olympiakos, which meant they could not finish as group winners, but still made it safely through to the next stage. Schalke finished in first place as they drew with Montpellier.
As for Chelsea, they became the first holders of the Champions League to crash out at the first possible opportunity. Their 6-1 win over Nordsjaelland did not count for anything as Juventus beat Shakhtar Donetsk, which meant they progress along with the Ukrainian side.
Rafael Benitez will now be going for Europa League success at Stamford Bridge.
One team who knew they were going through to the final sixteen a while ago were Manchester United as they won their opening four group games to guarantee progression. They went down 1-0 at home to Cluj, but Sir Alex Ferguson put out a very young side and had one eye on this weekend’s Manchester derby.
The big story of the week came from Glasgow though, as Celtic secured a place in the knockout stages against all the odds. Neil Lennon’s men beat Spartak Moscow 2-1 at Celtic Park and Benfica could only manage a 0-0 draw at Barcelona, so the Scottish champions go through with the Spanish giants.
A number of the European place were already decided before this week’s action, but Galatasaray were a team to secure their place in the next round on Wednesday evening after their win against Sporting Braga.
Paris Saint Germain, Porto, AC Milan, Malaga, Bayern Munich and Valencia are the other teams who will be competing in the last 16 of this fascinating Champions League.
