If Tuesday night’s games were a bit surprising, last night’s results were
downright shocking. The ‘group of death’ was particularly entertaining for the
upsets it provided. Here’s a look at last night’s results and who’s looking
good for qualification halfway through the group stages.
Group A
Group A saw nouveau riche Paris Saint-Germain complete a routine victory
away at Dinamo Zagreb. Jeremy Menez rounded one defender before dragging back
to new boy Ibrahimovic for his second goal of the tournament so far. Three
minutes before half time the scoring was completed when Menez turned scorer to
put PSG two up, blasting home from 10 yards out.
The more exciting match in the group was contested by Porto
and Dinamo Kiev. A fairly even game with Porto edging possession 55-45, Porto eventually showed their dominance, taking them to
the top of the group. The match was well balanced throughout, Porto
drawing first blood after just 15 minutes with Silvestre Varela receiving a ball
from Lucho Gonzalez on the edge of the box and firing a rocket of a half volley
past Olexandr Shovkovskiy into the roof of the Dinamo net. The home side held
the lead for only 5 minutes, however, when Oleg Gusev headed in from a Miguel
Veloso corner. After this Porto always looked the more likely to retake the
lead and they did after 36 minutes when talented Columbian midfielder James
Rodriguez laid a perfectly weighted pass cutting open the Dinamo defence
leaving Jackson Martinez to slide the ball under Shovkovskiy’s body. Porto
should have closed the match out after this, one of the better chances coming
when wing-back Danilo put in a precise cross only for Martinez to lash the volley over the Dinamo
bar. Dinamo Kiev retained their fighting spirit and drew level again with only
18 minutes remaining. Ukranian Andriy Yarmolenko putting a perfect ball over
the top for Ideye Brown to chest down and volley home. The reinstated deadlock
lasted only 5 minutes however when Lucho Gonzalez crossed along the floor for
his second assist to find Martinez at the back post on target for his second
goal of the night.
This sees Porto top the group, their 100% record intact, but with a
difficult away trip to Paris
ahead there are no guarantees it will stay that way. On the evidence of last night,
Porto and PSG are definitely most likely to qualify, leaving Kiev
and Zagreb in
third and fourth respectively.
Group B
One of the biggest upsets of the night was Arsenal’s home defeat to
Schalke. Having conceded only 6 goals in 8 Premier League games Arsene Wenger
will have been sorry to see two home goals knocked pasy stand-in keeper Vito
Mannone. However, Schalke are not without attacking potency and Huub Stevens
will feel that his side fully justified the 2-0 scoreline, creating just as
many chances as Arsenal, and being more clinical with them. Particularly bad
for Arsenal were Gervinho, who lacked any real attacking threat, and Andre
Santos who was played a part in conceding both goals, playing Huntelaar onside
for the first and providing no difficult opposition for Farfan in the build up
to the second. We went more than three quarters of the match without a goal,
and while it was entertaining enough to watch it was hardly end to end stuff.
The first goal came in the 76th minute when Klass-Jan Huntelaar smashed
an Ibrahim Afellay headed through-ball straight through the legs of Mannone.
Even this didn’t seem to motivate Arsenal into attack mode, conceding again 10
minutes later. Farfan finding Afellay at the back post to put the match, and
Arsenal, to bed.
Montpellier started and finished this game the same as their only other
home Champions league game to date, against Arsenal, leaving themselves with
very little chance of qualifying. All was looking good when, after 48 minutes,
Gaëtan Charbonnier put the French champions ahead after some neat footwork from
John Utaka set the Frenchman up for a half volley from the edge of the box. The
home side continued to have the better of the possession until Vasilis Torosidis
levelled the match in the 72nd minute. Torosidis brought down a deep
in-swinging cross from Jose Holebas and
then drilled his shot home from close range. The misery was compounded for Montpellier
when Djamel Abdoun crossed to put the ball on a plate for substitute Kostas
Mitroglou in the 91st minute. It is the third time in three games in
this competition that Rene Girard, banned from the dugout for last night’s
game, has seen his team go 1-0 up only to throw away points.
Following this disappointing result for Montpellier they will need a
minor miracle to progress to the knockout stages and, despite the win,
Olympiacos will still be considered outsiders by most to qualify. This leaves
Arsenal and Schalke to hash it out for that coveted number 1 spot to avoid
facing top-quality opposition in the first knock out round, although having
seen the amount of upsets this gameweek has provided us, first place is
absolutely no guarantee of that.
Group C
Malaga continued their great run of form in this competition by beating
an unsurprisingly lacklustre Milan side at La Rosaleda last night. Having won
only 2 of their 8 league games so far this season, and with a negative goal
difference, it was no shock that Milan went down to a Malaga side who this
season are “the best of the rest” in La Liga. Stephan El Shaarawy missed what
can only be described as a sitter after Urby Emanuelson’s cross seemed to make
it easier to hit the target than to blast it wide, unfortunately for Milan El
Sharaawy chose the latter. But it was not only Milan who seemed determined to
keep the match goalless, Joaquin’s penalty clipping the bar on its way over
after Kevin Constant had knocked Jesus Gamez to the floor in the box. The Spaniard
made up for his penalty miss however, latching on to Manuel Iturra’s perfectly
weighted chipped through pass and side-footing it in off the post. After that
both sides had a couple of chances to add to the scoring, but it stayed 1-0 and
Malaga will be feeling that only a slip-up of the most monumental kind will see
them not qualify for the first knockout stage.
Zenit St Petersburg and Anderlecht contested the other game in this
group, a game that only yielded one goal, an Aleksandr Kerzhakov penalty which
gave Zenit a realistic chance of qualifying given Milan’s drab performances
thus far. A game full of half chances it almost seemed like it was heading
towards a goalless draw but when Aleksandr Anyukov was fouled in the box by
Bram Nuytinck there was only ever going to be one outcome. Kerzhakov slotted
the penalty home in seemingly easy fashion and Zenit held out to see themselves
only one point off a qualification point at the half-way stage.
At this point it is difficult to predict who will be joining Malaga, who
are virtually a given for qualification, in the first knockout round between
Milan and Zenit. Although the Italians have not been covering themselves in
glory you have to fancy them to get three points against Zenit at the San Siro,
so they are my pick for second spot.
Group D
We will probably never again see champions from 4 such distinguished
leagues in the same group so we should be glad that the “group of death” is
living up to its name. We shall start with the mighty scalp of Real Madrid
being taken by the thoroughly professional Borussia Dortmund. The fact that
Dortmund have won the German title two years on the bounce tells us that Jurgen
Klopp’s team is a team who are making a real push for European recognition the
likes of which they haven’t seen for over 15 years. After slaughtering Ajax in
Amsterdam there were a few who thought Dortmund might go the same way, it was
not to be. The German side opened the scoring after midfielder Sebastian Kehl
pounced on a wayward back-pass from Madrid defender Pepe and put Lewandowski
through who finished with aplomb. There was absolutely no sign of pressure
getting to the Germans but sometimes there is no stopping Cristiano Ronaldo. Only
two minutes later Ronaldo showed a phenomenal burst of pace to reach Mesut Ozil’s
lofted pass and then lobbed the ball over the oncoming Roman Weidenfeller into
an empty net for what is already his 5th goal of the tournament. At
1-1 it was still anybody’s game and despite the Spaniards having the better of
possession Dortmund matched them blow for blow. And it was Dortmund who threw
the knockout punch when, on 63 minutes, Iker Casillas’s half-hearted flap at
Mario Gotze’s cross was met by Marcel Schmelzer who leathered the ball into the
bottom right-hand corner to give the home side the lead. With still half an
hour to go the job was far from done, Borussia defended stoutly and even
created a couple more chances of their own. Real will feel like they might have
come away from the Westfalenstadion with a share of the spoils but it was a
justified win for a well organised Dortmund team who are going from strength to
strength under Jurgen Klopp and, finding themselves top of the group, will feel
very hard done by if they aren’t still in the competition come February.
The other big tree to fall last night was Manchester City. This one is
perhaps only slightly less surprising given their early exit last season and
less than convincing start to this campaign. However Ajax were roundly trounced
at home 4-1 by Real Madrid last time out so the two goal winning margin here
definitely came as a surprise. Ajax looked like a completely different team
last night, playing with discipline and a cutting edge that was completely
absent against Madrid. However things looked to be going the same way as the
match against the Spaniards when, after 21 minutes, Samir Nasri received a pass
from James Milner, opened his body and curled the ball past Ajax keeper Kenneth
Vermeer. On the stroke of half time Ajax were back in the match, a slightly
wayward cross from wing back Ricardo van Rhijn was met by captain Siem de Jong
who blasted the ball low past a helpless Joe Hart to give the home side the
impetus going in at the half. Ajax came out the better side and after 12 second
half minutes Ajax were in front, Niklas Moisander rising to meet Christian
Erkisen’s corner with a well-placed glancing header. Eriksen then turned scorer
10 minutes later. He was allowed to run 20 yards towards the city goal without
any real opposition and then saw his slightly tame left-footed effort deflect
past the unfortunate Hart. City manager Roberto Mancini will have to shoulder a
large portion of the blame after his tactical tampering, putting three at the
back when his team were performing reasonably well, seemed to come unstuck.
However the city players were hardly faultless, looking lost and uninspired for
large parts of the game.
This loss sees city bottom of the group with only a point and no real
hope of advancing, leaving the most likely two to qualify as Dortmund and
Madrid, although probably not in that order. Ajax’s valiant effort doesn’t hide
the fact that their previous two performances in this group have been far from
good enough and, unless they pull some more surprises out of the hat, they will
fail to make the grade this time round.
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