PSG barely made it to the Champions League play-offs from the “group of death”

The group stage of the football Champions League has ended, and the last participants in the playoffs have been determined. In Group F, the second place was won by PSG, which was satisfied with a 1:1 draw in the match with Borussia. Porto advanced from Group H to the next round of the tournament, beating Shakhtar 5:3.

Before the final matches of the group stage of the Champions League, only two tickets to the play-offs remained in the draw, and for one of them in Quartet F Three clubs applied at once – PSG, Newcastle and Milan. In principle, it is not surprising that there was such tough competition in the strongest group of the preliminary stage. What was rather surprising was that Borussia, which started with a loss of five points, then managed to advance to the 1/8 finals ahead of schedule.

In the sixth round, Dortmund were no longer worried about the result, although, in fact, the entire final situation depended on their home match with PSG.

The fact is that the victory guaranteed the Parisians, who had seven points, not only access to the next round, but also first place in the group. And only with a different outcome, the key became the confrontation between Newcastle and Milan, who were two points behind them.

However, Borussia, of course, was not going to help PSG and wanted to enter the playoffs through the front door as the winner of the “group of death”. The French team was lucky that Marius Wolf missed in the opening from an ideal position. But this moment seemed to wake her up, after which she organized a series of acute episodes at the gates of Gregor Kobel. Kylian Mbappe completely dribbled around the Dortmund goalkeeper and hit an almost empty target, but a real miracle was performed by the home team’s defender Niklas Süle, who, while falling, raised his leg high, carried the ball flying into the net. In addition, PSG left winger Bradley Barcola hit the post, and striker Randal Kolo Muani just missed the mark when he ran one-on-one with Kobel. Shortly before the break, his teammates once again brought him to a rendezvous with the Swiss goalkeeper, who had already saved the team himself.

Borussia could have punished the guests for such wastefulness, but they also had problems with execution, and the first half ended 0-0, which benefited Newcastle, who took the lead in the meeting with Milan in the 33rd minute. Joelinton smashed the ball into the top corner with all his heart from an easy pass from 17-year-old Lewis Miley. Thus, it was the English club that reached the play-offs by the break of the matches at Signal Iduna Park and St. James’s Park.

Moreover, at the beginning of the second half the situation for PSG worsened. The Parisians fumbled around their penalty area, which led to a goal by Karim Adeyemi, who made a skillful low shot after receiving a pass from Niklas Füllkrug. Soon Warren Zaire-Emry equalized with a slashing shot from under Adeyemi, but it was not enough.

And then Milan came to the aid of PSG, who managed to win back in Newcastle thanks to the efforts of Christian Pulisic, who fired the ball into the goal from close range.

Then Luis Enrique’s team tried to protect themselves, and Mbappe seemed to score a good goal in his characteristic manner, rushing away from his guards like an electric train. But VAR recorded a slight offside for him.

Meanwhile, while balance was established in Dortmund, the Milanese again distinguished themselves in the parallel match. The visitors caught Newcastle on a counterattack, and fresh Samuel Chukwueze with Noah Okafor assisting him brought them a strong-willed victory – 2:1. And PSG ended up losing to Borussia 1:1. As a result, the French and Italian clubs had eight points each, but thanks to the advantage in head-to-head matches, PSG took second place. Borussia won the group with 11 points, Milan will compete for the Europa League trophy, and Newcastle remained fourth over with five points.

Another ticket to the playoffs was played out in group N, where Porto and Shakhtar, who had nine points each, argued for it in a head-to-head meeting. The Portuguese club, which also played on their home field, was considered the clear favorite, and everything went without surprises. In open football, the more skilled hosts outscored their opponents – 5:3. At the same time, the Brazilian Galeno Wenderson scored a double and gave two assists. It is curious that in another match Barcelona sensationally lost to Antwerp – 2:3.

“Porto” caught up with the Catalans with 12 points, but still advanced to the 1/8 finals from second place based on additional indicators.

Shakhtar moves to the Europa League, and Antwerp can be proud of the fact that they defeated Barca, taking three points at the end of the group stage.

IN group E A match for first place took place, in which Atlético hosted Lazio and won 2:0. Thus, Madrid scored 14 points, and the Romans – 10. Feyenoord was defeated by Celtic – 1:2, but already guaranteed itself participation in the Europa League with six points. The Scottish club finished with an honorable four points.

IN group G Manchester City and RB Leipzig, who had long been in the play-offs, won another victory, defeating Red Star and Young Boys, respectively – 3:2 and 2:1. Thus, the winner of the last Champions League showed the maximum result, scoring a grandmaster 18 points, which was achieved only by Real Madrid. Leipzig finished the performance with 12 points. Young Boys qualified for the Europa League with four points, while Crvena Zvezda was content with only one.

Alexander Ilyin