The beautiful tournament is back with its final touches in the group stages. Groups A,B,C and D have ended all 6 rounds and the qualified teams have been unveiled. Some disappointments and some fairy tale stories were present in the night of champions.
The Night Of Champions
Group A- Paris Saint Germain And Manchester City Ease To The Next Round
Despite Manchester City losing 2-1 to RB Leipzig, they still ended up as top of the group with 12 points. The main highlight of the game came after Kyle Walker was sent off. This red card could cost him missing out the next game in the Champions League which will be in the round of 16. As for Leipzig, the German team managed to capture the 3 points and head off to the Europa League after finishing third in the group ahead of Belgian club “Club Brugge”.
As for Club Brugge, they had a terrible game by losing four goals to one in the Parc Des Princes to Paris Saint Germain. A brace for Lionel Messi and a brace for Kylian Mbappe saw the team show up in a much better form than in previous games. The players looked more confident and they worked much better as a team. Speaking of Mbappe, the French international became the youngest player to reach 30 goals in the history of the Champions League.
Group B- Last Round Drama in San Siro
Ac Milan hosted English giants Liverpool in a game which they needed a win to have their hopes of remaining in the tournament high. The game saw Ac Milan lose 2-1 after having a 1-0 lead. Goals from Divock Origi and Mohamed Salah saw Liverpool end the group with six out of six wins. Mohamed Salah scored his twentieth goal of the season so far. The Egyptian king has been one of the best players in the world this season if no the best.
On the other hand, in the same group, Antoine Griezmann gets back on the scoring sheet after leading his team to a 3-1 victory over Portuguese giants Porto. Atletico Madrid finished in second place leaving Porto in third and Ac Milan in fourth.
Group C- Ajax Shows 2019 Flashbacks
With 20 goals scored and six out of six wins, Dutch giants Ajax end the group as first. Their amazing and catchy performance has been a delight for any football fan. Their current form is a flashback of their amazing run in the 2018/19 season in which they were seconds away from reaching the final but missing out after a Lucas Moura hat-trick for Tottenham. Sebastian Haller has now became the second ever player to score in every group stage game after Ronaldo in 2017 with Real Madrid.
On the other hand, Borussia Dortmund, lead by Haaland, beat Turkish side Besiktas 5-0. However, this result was not enough for them to move on to the next round finishing third while Sporting Lisbon finished second.
Besiktas is one of the teams who performed less than expected. Many fans expected them to show much more passion looking to the fact they have giant fan bas and several experienced players with Miralem Pjanic being one of them.
Group D- In-Form Real Madrid End The Group As Leaders
After the win 2-0 against Inter Milan, 13 time Champions League winners Real Madrid end the group as leaders. This is a massive achievement for Carlo Ancelotti (Real Madrid manager) as now he avoids facing the big teams in the next round. As for Inter Milan, qualifying to the next round is by itself an achievement looking to the fact that they missed out on qualifying in the previous season. A massive round of applause should go to their manager Simone Inzaghi who managed to pull out great performances despite losing several influential players in the summer.
A 1-1 draw between Sheriff Tiraspol and Shakhtar Donetsk saw Sheriff end up as third and qualify for the Europa League. Sheriff started off the season well defeating both Shakhtar and Real Madrid in the first two games. However, after that everything went downhill and they ended up losing their following three games and drawing their final one.
Main Image Credit Embed from Getty Images
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