At around 4:45 p.m the final whistles blew around Europe ending the final match day for the group stage of the Champions League.
Going into today most of the final positions had been set especially since half of the games for this round were played yesterday (Tuesday's Round Up). Going into today there were only three spots technically up for grabs for progression to the next round.
We already knew that PSG, FC Poto, Schalke 04, Malaga, AC Milan, Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayern Munich, Valencia, Barcelona, and Manchester United had qualified for the knockout rounds. The final three spots that were still up for grabs were in group E between Chelsea (last year's winners) and Jeventus, group G between Celtic and Benfica, and group H between CFR-Cluj and Galatasaray.
That has now all been decided with Jeventus earning a win vs Shakhtar to eliminate last year's champions Chelsea, Celtic earning a last minute win against Spartak Moscow to eliminate Benfica, and Galatasaray coming from behind to beat Braga to eliminate CFR Cluj.
This is particularly disheartening for Chelsea because the become the only team to fail to advance to the knockout stages after winning the competition the year before. Despite them completely dismantling FC Nordsjaelland 6-1, They had to hope for Juventus to lose in order for them to progress and that is something that Juventus made sure didn't happen by beating Shakhtar 1-0.
This will only heap pressure on Chelsea's new interim manager Rafael Benitez who was recently appointed after Chelsea fired Roberto Di Matteo for his "poor run of form" despite leading Chelsea to it's first ever Champions League trophy.
However, even though all of the qualifications have been set there are still a bit of surprises that will certainly raise some eyebrows. The most intriguing point is the fact that power house Real Madrid are in the second pot of teams, meaning after the December 20 match-up draw, one of the top qualifying teams will face Real Madrid.
After The Full 90 will cover the knockout stage draw as it happens so be sure to check back to see what the match ups will be.
