Bayern, City advance to CL knockout stage
Print Edition
Holders Bayern Munich and Manchester City became the first teams to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League on Tuesday.
Bayern made heavy weather of beating Viktoria Pilsen 1-0 while group rivals City reached the knockout stages for the first time, after flopping in the group stage the last two seasons, with a 5-2 thumping of CSKA Moscow in Manchester.
Bayern coach Pep Guardiola, whose side equaled the Champions League record of nine successive wins set by Barcelona back in the 2002/03 season, was satisfied despite the unconvincing display exemplified by yet another poor first-half performance.
“We have taken all the points we could in the four games, which shows how strong we are,” Guardiola said.
City got the better of CSKA with a Sergio Aguero double and a hat-trick from Alvaro Negredo, with manager Manuel Pellegrini saying: “It is the first step, but it’s an important one as the team has not qualified before. We have done that now.”
Former French champions Paris Saint Germain missed out on claiming its place in the last 16 as they were held to a surprising 1-1 draw at home to previously pointless and goalless Belgian club Anderlecht, which the French side had thumped 5-0 a fortnight ago in Brussels.
In the end with the restive PSG fans booing their side, who nonetheless extended their unbeaten start to the season in all competitions, it was Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimovic who grabbed them a point after they briefly trailed.
Olympiakos Piraeus beat Benfica 1-0 in the other Group C match to consolidate second place three points behind PSG, which has 10, and three ahead of the Portuguese side.
Meanwhile, Manchester United labored to a 0-0 draw at Real Sociedad, which gained its first point of the campaign.
Robin van Persie summed up United’s frustrating evening when he hammered his second-half penalty against the post. To be fair though, Ashley Young looked to have dived to win the penalty.
To cap it all United midfielder Marouane Fellaini was sent off in the closing stages.
They still lead their group by a point but both Bayer Leverkusen and Shakhtar Donetsk, who drew 0-0 in Ukraine, are lurking.
However, United manager David Moyes, who has had a tough start to his reign after replacing Alex Ferguson, said he was happy with their place.
“We are in a healthy position, you want to be top of the group and that is where we are,” said Moyes.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
