Champions League Matchday 6 Open Thread

And our goal total winner is Wayne, who perfectly guessed tonight’s total of 18.

Final scores:

ManU 2-2 Aalborg. The scrappy Danes hold on to get a point
Celtic 2-0 Villareal. A bit of face-saving for the Scots in the final game.
Steaua 0-1 Fiorentina.
Lyon 2-3 Bayern. Probably the most exciting game of the day. Bayern led 3-0 at the half, but Lyon almost got the draw.
Porto 2-0 Arsenal. At least Eboue couldn’t get booed by his own fans. At least not many.
Dynamo Kyiv 1-0 Fenerbahce
Juventus 0-0 BATE. Apparently Juventus put all their trust in defense today.
Real Madrid 3-0 Zenit. Not enough to top Juventus, alas, but enough to make them hope their problems have disappeared with Bernd Schuster.

Halftime update: This is turning out to be a much more interesting day than expected. Eleven goals so far — a lot more than I thought we’d see.

Current scorelines are:

• Aalborg is beating ManU, 2-1! Expect an ear-frying halftime speech from Sir Alex and personnel changes after the half.
• Celtic over Villareal, 2-0! Correct me if I’m wrong, but won’t ManU got top of the group regardless if Villareal loses?
• Steaua 0-0 Fiorentina

Yawn.

• Lyon 0-3 Bayern. Ouch. Two from Klose, one from Ribery. Lyon is looking wounded.
• Porto 1-0 Arsenal. And Arsenal’s woes continue.
• Dynamo Kyiv 1-0 Fenerbahce.
• Juventus 0-0 BATE
• Real Madrid 1-0 Zenit. Juande Ramos attempting to work his magic right off the bat.

There isn’t a lot to play for today — the advancing teams have already been decided. This means that we are way too apathetic to do an actual liveblog. If I have a lot of caffeine over the next couple of hours, I may work up the energy to post halftime and fulltime results. Or not.

On the other hand, we’d love to hear your guesses for goal totals for the eight games, and to hear your thoughts and comments as the games progress, so we’re making this an Open Thread post.

I’m going to be watching Lyon-Bayern (teams battling for top spot in Group F) while keeping Manchester United-Aalborg on mute. How about you? Which are you watching?

Games for today:
ManU vs. Aalborg
Celtic vs. Villareal
Steaua vs. Fiorentina
Lyon vs. Bayern
Porto vs. Arsenal
Dynamo Kyiv vs. Fenerbahce
Juventus vs. BATE
Real Madrid vs. Zenit

Here (stolen from the Champions League blog) is a breakdown of what could happen today as it affects final standings:

Group E

Group E is all decided except who will win the group. Villarreal have to do better against Celtic, than Man United do against Aalborg to win the group. If they get the same result, it comes down to goal difference. Man United are currently on +6, Villarreal on +4

Group F

Lyon will win the group with a 0-0 or a win against Bayern. Bayern will win the group with a score draw, or a win against Lyon. Fiorentina will be in the UEFA cup unless they loose to Steaua.

Group G

Arsenal will win the group as long as they do not loose to Porto. Porto will obviously win the group with a win. winner of Dyanamo/Fener gets the UEFA Cup booby prize.

Group H

All done, if Juve don’t lose they’ll win the group. If they do, Real will. Easy.

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Category: World Football