UEFA Champions League Preview 08/12/2010
After a host of exciting matches on Tuesday, the Champions League group stage will reach a climax today with 8 more matches and 4 places still up for grabs in the last 16.
Tuesday saw Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspurs, Barcelona and FC Schalke qualify as the group leaders while Valencia, Inter Milan, Copenhagen and Lyon progressed as runners up.
Tonight, Arsenal and Chelsea will wrap up their campaigns with Chelsea looking to secure the top spot in their group while Arsenal have all to do in their last match as they have to win at all costs to make sure of making it into the
last 16 of the Europe’s elite competition.
The group H of the Champions League will be the centre of attention as three sides in this group are tied on 9 points and all three of them have a chance of making it into the next round.
Here is a group by group preview of Tonight’s matches.
Group E
The group E is a straight forward scenario with Bayern wining all but one of their matches and remain in pole position to qualify as the group Champions but the German giants are closely followed by AS Roma while CFR Cluj and FC Basel will battle it out
tonight for a place in the Europa League.
All the attention in this group will be on who qualifies as the runners up with Roma the clear favourites to go through. Going into tonight’s match Roma have a three points cushion over their next place rivals FC Basel and the Italians only need a draw from
their match against Cluj tonight to make it through to the next round but a loss will severely complicate matters as it will then give a chance to Basel to go through who play Bayern Munich tonight.
The task is simple for Claudio Ranieri’s men with a win guaranteeing them a place in the last 16. But their recent form domestically has been patchy as they only drew at the weekend and are depleted in terms of personnel going into the match. The Romans,
however, do know that qualification to the next round is extremely important and will be leaving no holds barred in their game tonight against Cluj.
Group F
The scenario in Group F is perhaps the simplest of all with Chelsea all but guaranteed the top spot in the group after 5 wins and tonight Carlo Ancelotti’s men will travel to France to take on Marseille.
Barring a calamity of mammoth proportions Marseille are also guaranteed a place in the next round as they hold a +12 goal difference over Spartak Moscow who play their match against MSK Zilina tonight, who are pointless in the campaign after 5 matches.
A draw in the match between Chelsea and Marseille will mean both the sides will go through while for Moscow to go through, Marseille will have to lose heavily against Chelsea while they will have to win their match against Zilina by a heavy margin too, a
possibility but nonetheless very less likely.
Group G
The matters in Group G are all but settled with Real Madrid and AC Milan guaranteed a spot in the last 16 with Real leading the run to be the group winners and AC Milan the runners up.
The only small matter to be decided here is the fact as to who will be third in this group and qualify for the Europa League.
Ajax have a one point cushion over Auxerre and will go to Europa League if they match the results of the French side against Real Madrid while a loss for Ajax and a win for Auxerre will see the French side qualifying for the Europa League.
Group H
This is the only group where both the spots are yet to be determined with the top 3 sides having a chance to go through.
Shakhtar Donetsk only need a draw from their game against Braga to go through while the Portuguese side must beat the Ukrainians to have a chance of going through.
For Arsenal they have to beat Partizan Belgrade in order to secure their qualification. In this group the possibility exists that all 3 teams might still end up on 12 points and if that occurs it will be the first time in the history of this competition
that a side will be eliminated after securing more than 10 points.
Wednesday's Fixtures:
Group E
CFR Cluj vs AS Roma
Group F
Marseille vs Chelsea
Zilina vs Spartak Moscow
Group G
AC Milan vs Ajax Amsterdam
Real Madrid vs Auxerre
Group H
Arsenal vs Partizan Belgrade
Shakhtar Donetsk vs Braga
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