Juventus were sensationally knocked out of the Champions League Tuesday when Bayern Munich scored three second-half goals to beat Juventus 4-1 in Turin. With the win Bayern progress to the knockout round of the Champions League and Juventus are sent to the Europa League.
“You could say that Juventus was bad, but you could also say that Bayern Munich was very good,” Bayern coach Louis Van Gaal said. “We controlled the pitch and controlled the ball, and perhaps this was too much for Juventus to handle.”
Bordeaux won Group A with 16 points after beating winless 1-0 Maccabi Haifa, followed by Bayern with 10. Juventus will play in the Europa League after finishing third with eight points, while was last with zero.
“The Bayern players played a great match and we couldn’t cope,” Juventus coach Ciro Ferrara said. “We worked hard, but all too often we were second to the ball. We are out of this tournament and it hurts.”
Other traditional European powers who also qualified for the knockout stages are Real Madrid and AC Milan. and Bayern Munich clinched their places in the next round of the Champions League on Tuesday. Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice to help record Madrid win 3-1 top Group C, while Milan needed a penalty from Ronaldinho to squeak out a 1-1 draw at FC Zurich.
Michael Owen scored a hat trick to give Manchester United a 3-1 win at Wolfsburg to take first place in Group B from CSKA Moscow . However CSKA’s place is in doubt after UEFA said two of the Russian team’s players failed doping tests after a 3-3 draw against Manchester United last month. UEFA will announce the result of its investigation on Dec. 17, the day before the draw for the next stage and they have to through CSKA out of the tournament.
Group D had already been settled before Tuesday with Chelsea and Porto going through in that order.
The final four places will be decided Wednesday. Barcelona, Inter Milan, Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Kiev can all advance from Group F, Unirea Urziceni and Stuttgart are vying to advance from Group G alongside Sevilla, and Olympiakos and Standard Liege are fighting for second place in Group H behind Arsenal.
Fiorentina and Lyon have already secured the top two Group E spots, with the final positions to be decided Wednesday when Fiorentina goes to Europa League qualifier Liverpool and Lyon is at last-place Debrecen.
