The UEFA Champions League group phase finished play on Wednesday and now the Round of 16 is getting set and on Monday the schedule will be released and that is December 16 and that comes after the group stage went from September until December and the knockout phase will begin with play in February and teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Olympiakos, Paris Saint Germain and Manchester United are through already.
Borussia Dortmund, Napoli and Arsenal all finished with the same amount of point and it looks like Napoli is out and they ended up winning on Wednesday against the Gunners 2-0 and some of the other results included wins for Atletico Madrid as well as Borussia Dortmund, Austria Vienna as well as a draw for AC Milan and Ajax Amsterdam. Chelsea took their group over Schalke with solid play and now they are thorough and Manchester City pulled off a huge win against Bayern Munich on Tuesday to pull even in Group D, while Barcelona and Real Madrid finished clear in their groups.
Barcelona killed it on Wednesday, leaving Celtic with a 6-1 loss and the match saw three goals from Neymar as well as scores from Cristian Tello as well as Gerard Pique. Schalke finished with a win over Basel, while Chelsea came up 1-0 from a goal by Demba Ba against Steua and Galatasaray finished 1-0 ahead of Juventus after their match was delayed the previous day. Manchester United eliminated Shakhtar with their win on Tuesday, while Real Madrid finished clean with a 2-0 win with goals from Ronaldo and Luka Modric and PSG ended up losing but they are fine, while Olympiakos advanced on their strong win and play from Javier Saviola and Manchester City pulled the biggest win on the schedule with a huge performance with three goals, including one from David Silva and the final one from James Milner to score three in a row to win.
Check here for more on the UEFA Champions League table and standings.
United midfielder Phil Jones grabbed the winner to make sure they finished top of Champions League Group A as they eliminated Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0 at Old Trafford on Tuesday.
England international Jones cracked home a low volley in the 67th minute to secure a win for United, top of their group before kickoff but having lost their last two Premier League home matches, and ease the pressure on manager David Moyes.
Ukrainian champions Shakhtar, who needed to match Bayer Leverkusen's result at Real Sociedad to progress, finished third and go into the Europa League after Leverkusen held on for a 1-0 win in Spain that took them through to the knockout phase.
Shakhtar's Brazilian trio of Taison, Alex Teixeira and Luiz Adriano gave vulnerable United a torrid time early on, but Mircea Lucescu's side could not convert any of their promising opportunities and they fell away after Jones broke the deadlock.
(Reuters)
