Champions League Matchday 5 Tuesday Liveblog

By: chris | November 25th, 2008

90+Strangely enough, all knockout round teams from today’s groups have been decided. How anticlimactic.

E: ManU & Villareal through.
F: Bayern & Lyon.
G: Arsenal & Porto.
H: Real & Juventus.

None of which should come as a surprise to anyone. All that’s left for the rest of the teams is to play for that UEFA Cup spot.

Bayern and Lyon win as well, sending both to the knockouts while closing the book on Fiorentina’s CL run.

Full time in Spain, and both teams go through. Shocker.

And Aliev has been sent to the showers, but not before the entire Dynamo team has to restrain him from kicking the crap out of the ref.

88′ Pink Boots Bendtner saves Arsenal face with a late, late goal. And I’d like to take a slice of the credit for reminding them how long its been since they scored a goal. 1-0 Arsenal.

Cruel own goal for Celtic in Denmark, and AaB look like they have the fast track to the UEFA Cuo.

85′ Almunia just saved a point blank surefire game winner and compounded embarrassment for Arsenal. And howlong has it been since they’ve scored a goal now? Seems like ages. Maybe the Carling Cup team should get a full senior run.

81′ And the hero Capdevila had been sent off with a straight red for throwing his studs at CRon’s thigh.

79′ Capdevila clears a deflected Rooney shot off the line to save a goal. See, Silvestre? That’s how it’s done.

74′ Aalborg have leveled things through Caca, keeping alive their hopes of a UEFA Cup spot – because they ain’t beating United in Manchester.

71′ Officially over in Germany. 3-0 Bayern, Klose with his ~~third~~ second.

And Bayern with a clinic on finishing a wounded opponent: all three goals in 14 mins.

64′ A horrible deflection in Istanbul and Fenerbahce have pulled one back. Kazim x Two’s shot was going to be saved easily but it was kicked up by the defender and looped over the keeper’s head. As lucky as goals get.

61′ And it appears that has opened up the floodgates. 2-0 Bayern, this one Luca Toni.

58′ Klose finally got one through in Bavaria. That’s now a whopping two home teams which have scored. Praise the lord. 1-0 Bayern.

56′ Barry Robson just added some life to the party in Aalborg. 1-0 Celtic.

55′ This is officially a boring arse day. Four games currently without a goal and another which has already finished as such. Where’s Antonio Cassano when you need some shameless scoring?

51′ Rooney also needs to stop taking lessons from CR in diving in the box…

48′ ManU really needs a team barber. From Anderson to the fullback twins to Ronaldo to Rooney. They can do a lot of things on the pitch, but hair styling ain’t their forte.

Second half kickoff

Half-time whistles are coming fast and furiously. Porto – Fener & Real v BATE seem to be the only remaining.

Villarreal 0 – Man Utd 0
AaB 0 – Celtic 0
Bayern 0 – Steaua 0
Fiorentina 1 – Lyon 2
Fenerbahce 0 – Porto 2
Arsenal 0 – Dynamo Kyiv 0
Zenit 0 – Juventus 0 (Final)
BATE 0 – Real Madrid 1

So who had a prediction of 12 goals? If so, you’re looking good.

44′ Damn, Gilardino scored a header. Home team is on the board, but it’s still 2-1 Lyon.

42′ CR7 just violently shook the woodwork in Spain. Probably not the first time.

40′ Mikael Silvestre just cleared an absolutely gorgeous free kick off the line. Unfortunately, the free kick came from Robin van Persie. Well done.

36′ Can we make it to the half without a home team scoring? Probably not a first, but surely an incredibly rare occurrence.

35′ So that Klose goal is missing from every single website, which makes me think it was called off – and it was for offside. 5 goals, 5 away goals. Ouch.

30′ Apparently everyone’s found their feet. Lisandro just scored his second to give Porto a 2-0 lead over Fener.

28′ Benzema for 2-0 in Firenze. What an odd side this Fiorentina team. Big 4-2 win over Udinese on the weekend after a tough 1-0 loss to Cagliari and now this. Think they’re looking forward to December.

26′ And Miroslav Klose blows my theory to smithereens by scoring after a beautifully chested pass from Luca Toni. 1-0 Bayern in Bayern.

25′ Potentially ominous stat: All three goals scored thus far have come from away teams. I sense a lot of unhappy public transports throughout Europe this evening.

19′ Porto go up 1-0 in Istanbul. The entire Fener D is asking for offside and when the volley comes in from the side of the box, Volkan can’t get a grip and the ball falls for an easy Porto goal.

14′ Jean Makoun scores in Firenze after getting way too much space in the box. 1-0 Lyon. And Fiorentina nearly come right back from the center circle to even things up.

7′ CL king Raul kicks off the festivities in snowy Borisov with a simple finish from 8 yards. 1-0 Real.

5′ Over/under on pounds of gel in Ronaldo’s hair: +/- 7.5

1′ Here’s the giant German simulcast which will show all of the goals along with a lot of Bayern v Steaua.

Kickoff around Europe.

How Not To Get Yourself Playing Time, by Lukas Podolski. One day after asking out of Bavaria he’s not even on the bench. I guess that’s a “fuck you right back” from Jurgen.

Zenit & Juve just played to a scoreless draw in St. Petersburg. Woo. Yeah.

Is now a good time to make some odds on William Gallas? Believe so.

Gets a yellow card: 4/1
Gets a red card: 10/1
Punches Cesc in the face and takes the band back: 25/1
Roundhouses RvP upside the head and defecates on his unconscious body: 40/1
Behaves like a proper captain: 100/1

Chris here, punching in my time sheet. And I’m going with 23 goals. Three of which will come from Franck Ribery because, as uefa tells us, he’s “in the pink”. Good for him.

OK, and welcome to matchday 5. This is where it should get interesting, theoretically at least, with just two group stage matchdays to go. ESPN agree, in theory, and have apparently “promoted” Champions League action from ESPN2 all the way up to actual ESPN. The big dog.

But they’ve also decided that the best game on offer was Villarreal vs Man Utd, two teams tied on eight points who can achieve mutually assure qualification by playing out a draw today. Hmm. Today’s full lineup:

Villarreal vs Man Utd
AaB vs Celtic
Bayern vs Steaua
Fiorentina vs Lyon
Fenerbahce vs Porto
Arsenal vs Dynamo Kyiv
Zenit vs Juventus
BATE vs Real Madrid

Rob has a handy explanation of standings and who needs to do what over on CL Offside.

Zenit vs Juve has already kicked off, despite earlier doubts that the match would go ahead following an explosion at the Zenit training ground. Wow.

Any predictions for total goals today? Given the number of teams who can progress with a draw I’m going with a lowish 17. Chris will be along soon to do provide all the LiveBloggy goodness.