Tuesday 23 November 2021

Chelsea and United continue
Barcelona should hope for the grace of Bavaria

Bayern Munich will decide the fate of Barcelona on the last day of the Champions League group stage. The Spanish giant is threatened in the preliminary round. Things are going better with defending champions Chelsea and Manchester United as well. In Bern, spectators witness the game of wild birds.

The fear of traditional FC Barcelona should continue into the Round of 16. In the second match under new coach Xavi, the five-times champions did not get past Lisbon’s Benfica 0-0. Although Barcelona are in second place, seven points behind Benfica (5), they will have to play for Bayern on the last day of the match. If Barcelona do not beat the record-breaking German champions on the final day of the match, they should hope to enlist the help of Dynamo Kiev. Benfica won in the direct comparison against the Catalan team. Bayern have won so far in five of their five Champions League matches.

Xavi’s team scored a goal through Ronald Araujo in the last minutes, but the goal was preceded by an offside position. Benfica missed the opportunity in the last minutes to open the door to the round of 16 with a victory. After a counterattack in injury time, Frankfurt am Main, Haris Seferovic, hoisted the ball over German goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, but also just outside the goal.

Solskjaer win

However, defending champions FC Chelsea around team manager Thomas Tuchel have bought his ticket to the round of 16 of the Champions League. The English beat already qualified Juventus Turin 4-0 (1-0) on Tuesday night and on top of that sat at the top of the Group E table. Center back Trevor Chalobah (25), Reece James (55), Callum Hudson-Odoi (58) and nationalist Timo Werner (90+5) scored the goals for Chelsea who battled for the group win at Ferndale with Juventus on the final day of the match. Werner was replaced after a long injury in the 72nd minute.

Chelsea rivals Manchester United were able to count once again on superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and also celebrated his entry into the knockout stage. Two days after parting with coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the Premier League champions beat European champions Villarreal 2-0 (0-0). Ronaldo (78) and former Dortmund Jadon Sancho (90) scored the two goals. It was United’s first Champions League win away from home since beating Paris Saint-Germain in October 2020.

“They haven’t been easy days for anyone at the club,” said interim coach Michael Carrick. “This result almost feels like it’s for Ole. If you’re not happy with the results and you’re not in good shape, either individually or as a team, you can’t click on everything right away. We had to show character and fight.”

The Wolfsburg group is still wide open

In the United group, Atalanta Bergamo missed a huge step towards the knockout stage. Injured national player Robin Goossens’ club broke away in a wild game with a score of 3:3 (1:1) from Young Boys Burn and remained in third place. On the eighth of December, the Italians will receive Villarreal in the final. Former Schalke 04 coach David Wagner has been eliminated from the Swiss national team despite a heroic performance.

Things are still very difficult at Wolfsburg G. Thanks to Jonathan David’s goal (31), Lille OSC defeated the Austrian champions 1-0 (1-0) and moved up to first place in the standings table (eight points). The Austrians around new international Karim Adeyemi (7) lurk right behind them, followed by Sevilla (6) and Wolfsburg (5).