Manchester United and Juventus were among the sides to clinch a place in the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday, while Bayern Munich gained a measure of revenge over Paris Saint-Germain.
United, Juventus, AS Roma and Basel all went through with victories in their final group games, but Atletico Madrid, the defeated finalists in 2014 and last year, were eliminated.
Jose Mourinho’s United side came from behind to beat CSKA Moscow 2-1 at Old Trafford as they reach the knockout rounds for the first time since 2013-2014.
Photo: AFP
Only a heavy defeat could have eliminated United in Group A, but Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford scored two minutes apart in the second half to seal victory at Old Trafford, where they are unbeaten in 40 games in all competitions now.
CSKA had taken the lead on the stroke of halftime, a shot from the Brazilian Vitinho going in off the back of Alan Dzagoev.
“I’m really happy, because we don’t want to qualify with a defeat, we don’t want to qualify with a bad performance,” Mourinho said.
CSKA drop into the UEFA Europa League, while Basel reached the last 16 for the third time this decade, the Swiss champions beating SL Benfica 2-0 in Lisbon with goals from Mohamed Elyounoussi and Dimitri Oberlin.
Last season’s beaten finalists Juventus progressed from Group D thanks to their 2-0 win away to Olympiakos, Juan Cuadrado opening the scoring early on before Federico Bernardeschi completed the victory late on.
The Italian champions go through behind Barcelona, who rounded off their group phase by easing to a 2-0 win at home against Sporting Lisbon.
Lionel Messi was left on the bench at a sparsely populated Camp Nou as Paco Alcacer headed the hosts in front and Jeremy Mathieu then scored an own-goal against his old side. Sporting drop into the Europa League.
Roma knew they would go through from Group C with a win, which they got, although they could only edge out Qarabag of Azerbaijan 1-0 at the Stadio Olimpico with a Diego Perotti effort in the second half.
That turned out to be enough for Roma to win the section ahead of Chelsea, who had to come from behind to draw 1-1 at home to Atletico.
Saul Niguez headed Atletico in front on 56 minutes at Stamford Bridge, but Eden Hazard’s ball across goal was turned into his own net by Stefan Savic to restore parity.
Diego Simeone’s Atletico, who have only been knocked out by Real Madrid in each of the past four years, reaching at least the quarter-finals every time, must now accept a spot in the Europa League. They won that trophy in 2010 and 2012.
“I am not looking anywhere, but forward. This will help us for sure. These situations, apart from the frustration of not being in the next round, will help the team move forward and onto the Europa League,” Simeone told beIN Sports Spain.
Bayern and PSG had already secured qualification from Group B, but met at the Allianz Arena with first place still up for grabs.
Having lost 3-0 in Paris in September, Bayern needed to win by four goals to leapfrog Neymar and co.
They gave themselves a chance, with Robert Lewandowski and Corentin Tolisso both heading home in the first half.
Kylian Mbappe got one back just after the break, leaving Bayern with too much to do, although Tolisso did score again to make it 3-1.
PSG will be the happier side at winning the group, although possible last-16 opponents for them are Chelsea, Juventus and Real Madrid.
“I am 50 percent happy and 50 percent disappointed,” PSG coach Unai Emery said.
Celtic, who lost 7-1 at PSG last time out, lost 1-0 at home to RSC Anderlecht after a Jozo Simunovic own-goal in the second half.
Despite a fifth loss in six group games, they limp into the Europa League in the new year.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier