Champions League Matchday 6

By: chris | December 12th, 2007

Big things went down yesterday in the Champions League, and as you might expect from a game where most teams have nothing to lose – some goals were scored. Depending on how you look at it, only one team which would probably be considered a “surprise” went through – somewhat disappointing – and the big boys have taken their expected places in the knockout rounds. So down to business with yesterday’s results and today’s fixtures.

Group A

Through: Porto, Liverpool.

Porto walk through as the surprise first seed thanks to Lucho Gonzalez and Ricky Q. Liverpool also made their annual passage by manhandling the boys from southern France. It was all bad news from the start when Stevie G was taken down in the box for a deserved penalty and goals just started flowing from there. The one bright spot for Marseille was Samir Nasri, who was brought in a half hour in after being 50-50 before the game to play, and had me literally sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for him to get a touch on the ball. This kid is all kinds of special.

Group B

Through: Chelsea, Schalke

The one game that didn’t matter played out as such, to a nil-nil draw, ending a miserable CL run for Valencia. Over on the continent, the Cinderella story was just not to be, as Schalke walked through Rosenborg, sending them to the UEFA Cup and dashing everyone’s hopes that a 5th place finisher in the Norwegian Tippeligaen would be able to taste victory in Moscow (alright, maybe just mine). Too bad, there’s always 09-10.

Group C

Through: Real Madrid, Olympiacos

Real Madrid slapped around Lazio like an overweight, overmatched prizefighter all the way through to their 829th CL knockout stages (or something like that). Bremen, in what was supposed to be their Champions League coming out party after that disappointing showing in that painfully easy group last year (couple of teams named Barca and Chelsea), really shat the bed against Olympiacos and sent the Greeks on their first ferry ride to the next round in 9 attempts. 9th time’s a charm.

Group D

Through: Milan, Celtic

Group E

Barca 11
Rangers 7
Lyon 7
Stuttgart 3

The big one, Lyon travels to the Ibrox to try and salvage their Champions League season, which hit rock bottom against those same Scots to the tune of a 3-0 thrashing. The one-game playoff in Scotland combined with the revenge game – for both country and club (Scotland owns France’s numbers, all of them) – is simply fantastic. Just doesn’t get much better than that. (Also, Barcelona is good.)

Group F

Through: ManYoo, Roma

This one’s done and dusted. All that’s left to do is prevent some injuries. Knowing Roma, somebody will go out for the year in this meaningless game. Wonderful.

Group G

Inter 12
Fenerbahce 8
PSV 7
CSKA Moscow 1

Fenerbahce gets to play lowly CSKA while PSV gets to host Inter and needs all 3 points if they want to pass through. I’m going to go ahead and guess the Dutch would like to swap places with Fener. Or maybe not, as Inter is Kate Moss thin at the moment.

Definitely out of the reckoning for the Nerazzurri are Patrick Vieira (thigh), Olivier Dacourt (knee), Luís Figo (broken leg) and Dejan Stanković, who has suffered the recurrence of a troublesome achilles problem. Luis Antonio Jiménez is doubtful with a thigh strain while Zlatan Ibrahimović, Walter Samuel and Nicolás Burdisso are all banned.

Fun.

Group H

Through: Sevilla, Arsenal.

All that’s left is to decide the seeding.