City, PSG stay alive in Champions League as Lille storm through

LONDON: Manchester City stayed in the Champions League, barely. Paris St Germain saved their elite status in style.

Both had risked embarrassing exits before winning on Wednesday, grateful to be among the 24 teams in the knockout stage.

Big guns Real Madrid and Bayern Munich also won to secure their place in the new playoffs-round draw on Friday, while AC Milan and Juventus will join them despite both losing on Wednesday.

City flirted with a disaster before rallying to beat Club Brugge 3-1 in a must-win game. Trailing 1-0 at halftime, and then sitting 26th in the 36-team live standings, the 2023 title-winners were sparked by substitute Savinho to avoid elimination.

“In the second half we let our souls and hearts free,” City manager Pep Guardiola, who had an anguished evening on the sidelines and was shown a yellow card, told TNT Sports. “For today we are in the next round, that’s good.”

City finished 22nd but relief turns to the realisation that their playoff round opponents will be either Real or Bayern, who slotted into the bracket possibilities in 11th and 12th place respectively.

Defending champions Real won 3-0 at Brest courtesy of two goals from Rodrygo and another by Jude Bellingham and Bayern were 3-1 winners against Slovan Bratislava with goals by Thomas Mueller, Harry Kane and Kingsley Coman.

PSG started play in 22nd before cruising to a 4-1 win at VfB Stuttgart, fired by Ousmane Dembele’s hat-trick, that eliminated the German club.

The French champions impressed again after a crucial 4-2 comeback win over City one week ago, and rose to 15th place. Still, that puts PSG on a path to meet either Liverpool or Barcelona in the round of 16 in March if they win an all-French playoff against either Monaco or Brest.

A goal-stacked night of 18 simultaneous kick-offs in the final group matchday of the competition’s new format, eventually ended as the traditional format usually ended — with all the big guns still alive.

Liverpool and Barcelona were the only teams already guaranteed a place in the top eight and automatic progress to the round of 16 and they stayed first and second respectively despite Liverpool losing 3-2 to PSV Eindhoven and Barca drawing 2-2 with Atalanta.

Joining them are Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Aston Villa and Lille, who produced the performance of the night to thrash Feyenoord 6-1.

Although they eventually progressed reasonably comfortably, it was anything but for Man City at the Etihad. The 2023 European champions were exposed just before halftime when Raphael Onyedika brilliantly finished off a Brugge sweeping move.

But Mateo Kovacic waltzed through the centre of the Brugge side to equalise shortly after the break before Joel Ordonez’s own goal put City in front.

Savinho’s late strike added some gloss to the scoreline as Guardiola narrowly avoided the earliest exit from the competition in his career.

Brugge, thanks to results in other games, clung onto the final play-off spot despite their defeat and will next play either Atalanta or Borussia Dortmund.

PSG, semi-finalists last season, would have been knocked out by a loss in Germany but were never in any danger as Bradley Barcola’s brave header and two goals from Ousmane Dembele put them 3-0 up on Stuttgart inside 35 minutes.

Dembele, who played a starring role as a substitute against City, completed his hat-trick in the second period before Chris Fuehrich’s consolation.

“We’ve been doing very well for some time now, playing well, controlling possession and winning our games,” Dembele told Canal+. “We’re delighted to have qualified for the play-offs.”

Stuttgart dropped to 26th place and were eliminated along with Dinamo Zagreb, despite their 2-1 win over AC Milan whose United States playmaker Christian Pulisic had levelled the game.

UEFA’s preseason prediction of eight points to enter the knockout phase proved far off the mark.

Dinamo got 11 points and still were eliminated courtesy of Conrad Harder’s equaliser for Sporting with 13 minutes left in their 1-1 draw with Bologna.

Benfica had an impressive 2-0 win at Juventus, a result that left both teams in the playoffs. Juventus can face Milan in the playoffs round.

ARSENAL REACH LAST 16

Arsenal, Inter and Atletico sealed top-eight finishes as expected with low-key wins.

Arsenal only needed a point to wrap up a last-16 berth and goals from Jorginho and Ethan Nwaneri gave them a 2-1 victory at Girona and rubber-stamp their third-placed finish.

“Hopefully more belief in that dressing room that we are a good team and can face anyone and still perform and win games,” said Gunners manager Mikel Arteta.

Inter finished fourth in the standings after Lautaro Martinez got all three goals in their 3-0 victory over Monaco, who had Christian Mawissa sent off after 12 minutes.

Atletico made it five straight Champions League wins with a 4-1 thumping of Salzburg in Austria. The visitors were helped by two goals for Antoine Griezmann.

Leverkusen also completed the job, beating Sparta Prague 2-0 to finish sixth.

Lille began the day in 12th but ended in seventh after thumping Feyenoord, who contributed a remarkable three own goals to those scored by Osame Sahraoui, Jonathan David and Remy Cabella.

Villa led Celtic 2-0 with two Morgan Rogers goals inside the first five minutes but two for Adam Idah made it level at halftime.

Ollie Watkins, who missed a penalty, then restored the lead and Rogers completed his hat-trick at the death to lift Villa into the top eight.

Atalanta, Dortmund, Real, Bayern and Milan all ended one point off the top eight.

The draw for the two-legged next stage takes place on Friday, where, unlike in previous years, teams from the same country and group can meet.

Those games will be played on Feb 11/12 and 18/19 and the eight winners will then meet the eight top-ranked teams from the group stage in the round of 16 — with the seeded draw for that made on Feb 21.

The final is in Munich on May 31.

SCOREBOARD

(Tabulated under matches played, won, drawn, lost, points)

Liverpool 8 7 0 1 21

Barcelona 8 6 1 1 19

Arsenal 8 6 1 1 19

Inter Milan 8 6 1 1 19

Atletico Madrid 8 6 0 2 18

Bayer Leverkusen 8 5 1 2 16

Lille 8 5 1 2 16

Aston Villa 8 5 1 2 16

Atalanta 8 4 3 1 15