Reigning English Premier League champions Manchester City were bundled out of European club competition altogether after going down 1-0 away to Borussia Dortmund in their last game of the UEFA Champions League group stages which saw them finish last and miss out on a Europa League spot.
The Citizens needed to beat the Germans and hope Ajax
lose at the Bernabeu but while the latter happened, Julian Schieber’s 57th
minute strike for Dortmund saw Jurgen Klopp’s men claim a 1-0 win which propelled
them top of the group while City ended their miserable campaign finishing last
and failing to register a single win in the group.
Dutch giants Ajax qualified for the Europa League in
spite of getting a 4-1 drubbing from Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid. Cristiano
Ronaldo and Kaka both found the back of the net either side of Jose Callejon’s
brace as Los Blancos saw off Ajax in emphatic fashion in their way to finishing
second in Group D behind Dortmund.
French Ligue 1 spendthrifts Paris Saint Germain beat
Porto 2-1 to leapfrog the Portuguese side to Group A top spot. Thiago Silva
opened the scoring for PSG at the hour mark with a powerful header but the lead
lasted only four minutes with Jackson Martinez’s header drawing Porto level. However,
a goalkeeping cock-up from Porto custodian Helton gave PSG the winning goal at
the hour mark as they Ligue 1 side topped the group meaning the will avoid
teams like Barcelona and Dortmund in the knockout stages.
In the other match in the Group, Dinamo Zagreb and
Dynamo Kiev shared a 1-1 draw in a dead rubber match since Kiev had already
booked their Europa League slot.
Greek side Olympiakos came from a goal behind to
beat Arsenal 2-1 in Piraeus. Czech captain Tomas Rosicky opened the scoring for
the Gunners seven minutes before the interval but two second half goals from
Giannis Maniatis and Konstantinos
Mitroglou secured maximum points for Olympiakos but saw Arsene Wenger’s men
miss out on Group B top spot which was secured by German side Schalke who drew
1-1 in Montpellier.
Zenit St Petersburg secured Europa
League spot with a 1-0 win over AC Milan at the San Siro. Portuguese midfielder
Danny scored the only goal in the game but the loss was nevertheless non-influential
on the Rossonerie’s position as they had already booked their last 16 slot
together with Malaga. The Spanish outfit were held to 2-2 draw by Anderlecht.
And That's thesteifmastertake!!
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