UEFA Champions League: all the action from this week’s Champions League matches

UEFA Champions League action on Tuesday saw some of Europe’s most famous clubs advance towards the knockout stages of the competition, which will begin in February next year.

It was week 5 of the Group Stage and more in Spain, it must be said that Manchester United and Villarreal, although they were two of the teams to progress, produced a rather boring and uneventful goalless draw. The only good moments came in the first half when a shot from the Portuguese striker Ronaldo produced a great save from Diego López, the Villareal goalkeeper. López deflected the ball to the crossbar. Later, Utd and England star forward Wayne Rooney produced a cross that was deflected into the danger area, but it came to nothing when Villareal player Capdevila managed to clear the ball to safety.

The same player, Capdevilla, was also involved in the most unpleasant incident of the night. With only 6 minutes left to go, he launched himself and produced a rather ugly tackle on another of Man Utd’s star players, Ronaldo. Cadevilla rightly received a red card from the referee and went to take an early shower.

Unfortunately, it was the end of the road for Glasgow Celtic and Gordon Strachan. Celtic, in the same Group E as Manchester Utd, must have thought they could have gone to Aalborg and get a good result. A victory was the only chance Celtic had to stay alive in the competition. However, this season there will be no more European nights at Celtic’s Park Head Stadium. There will not even be the comfort of playing in the second European competition, the UEFA Cup. Celtic will finish last in Group E thanks to a 2 – 1 loss to the unattractive AaB Aalborg. Not many people would have put too much money into having Celtic finish last in this group when the draw was first held in the summer.

However, the match started well for Celtic, as they led 1 – 0. But tragedy struck with a few minutes left, as Celtic player Gary Caldwell could only turn the ball into his own goal after a goal fight. . Tears of sadness in the east end of Glasgow, while undoubtedly tears of joy in the west end of the city.

They moved on to Group F where Lyon, the eternal leader of their French national league, beat the Italians from Fiorentina. Lyon, therefore, also advance to the round of 16 of the competition. Unsurprisingly, Bayern Munich will join Lyon in the final stages after beating the Romanians from Steau Bucharest at the Allianz Arena. To be sure, all the great teams are lined up for battle when the Champions League reaches the sudden death stage.

The qualifying situation is no different in Group G, as both Arsenal, who lost the finalists in 2006 to Barcelona in Paris, and FC Porto, winners in 2004 when their coach was José Mourinho before they reached the West End of London to lead Chelsea. until the round of 16 with victories over Dynamo Kiev and Fenerbache respectively.

However, Arsenal left it a bit late against Kiev with the winner just 3 minutes from the end of the game, scored by Bendtner. That must have been a huge relief for Arsene Wenger and everything Arsenal related. Since their excellent victory in the Premier League against Man Utd like a few weeks ago, which at the time silenced some criticism, it has been nothing but bad news and bad press for Arsenal with more defeats and the William Gallas case, which resulted in be scratched from the captaincy.

Finally, on Tuesday night, two more of the European “Big Guns” made it through smoothly with the final week of the group stage to spare. Both nine-time champion Real Madrid and Italy’s Juventus confirmed their places in the round of 16 after Real defeated BATE Borisov and Juventus drew 0-0 against current Cup champions Zenit Saint Petersburg. from UEFA. Unfortunately, the result eliminated Zenit and it now seems likely that they will be able to defend the crown they won last season in Manchester against Glasgow Rangers. Although that probably won’t be much of a comfort to them.