Champions League Review

We already knew that Manchester United and Villarreal had qualified from this group and that Aalborg were going on to the Uefa Cup.

Manchester United stumbled to a 2-2 draw with Aalborg at Old Trafford but that proved to be enough to top the group after Villarreal went down 2-0 at Celtic.

United left out Van Der Sar, Rafael, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Carrick, Park and Berbatov, but they still had a team full of internationals and star names. It was a poor performance but a night that those from Aalborg will never forget.

Celtic at last got a victory for a Scottish club in Europe this season. It was the first one at the fourteenth attempt!

No surprises again in this group again as Bayern Munich and Lyon battled it out for top spot. Bayern took the honours with a 3-2 win in France with Klose netting twice.

Fiorentina consolidated their Uefa Cup qualification with a 1-0 win at Steaua Bucuresti. Steaua received six yellow cards and a red. I don’t think they took their elimination very well!

Porto and Arsenal were already assured of qualification and Dynamo Kiev were already through to the Uefa Cup before a ball was kicked. The only matter to be decided in Porto was who would top the group.

Porto took top spot with a comfortable 2-0 win against the unpredictable Gunners. Kiev won the other game 1-0 against Fenerbahce.

In this group Juventus did just enough to finish top with an uninspiring 0-0 draw at home to Bate.

Real Madrid were the other qualifiers and they gave Juande Ramos a winning start by beating Zenit St Petersburg 3-0.

Zenit move on to the Uefa Cup.

That leaves the last sixteen containing four English clubs, four Spanish, three Italian, two Portuguese and one each from Greece, Germany and France. Although many of the smaller teams gave a good account of themselves, the last sixteen has a pretty familiar look about it.