Celtic, Spurs and Birmingham City all fail to advance to the next round of the Europa league in what was a miserable 8 days for British clubs. Spurs and Birmingham both managed to win but were unable to finish second in their griup while celtic could only play a draw at Udinese.
Steven Pienaar, Andros Townsend, Jermain Defoe and Harry Kane were on the scoring sheet for North Londoners while Adam Rooney’s goal was enough for Birmingham to win over NK Maribor. But both these sides had to rely on other matches in their group that meant they could not make it to the draw to be held at Nyon later today.
Udinese’s Antonio Di Natale capitalised on a defensive blunder to secure a 1-1 draw at the Stadio Friuli and deny Celtic the away victory they needed to book a place in the knockout stages of the Europa League. For the Bhoys, Gary Hooper took advantage of a mix-up in the Udinese defence to tap in from a yard out .
Radamel Falcao, Alvaro Dominguez and Arda Turan scored for Atletico Madrid as they top Group I.
With Group C also already settled, PSV Eindhoven rounded off their group stage campaign unbeaten with late goals from Stanislav Manolev and Tim Matavz earning a 2-1 win over Rapid Bucharest, who replied through Daniel Pancu.
It was too little too late for Hapoel Tel Aviv, who beat already-qualified Legia Warsaw 2-0 in Israel. Salim Toama and Abihai Yadin won the game for the home side despite Gal Shish’s second half sending-off.
AZ Alkamaar were the third Dutch team to qualify for the next round whenMaher’s equalizer earned them a point after Marko Devic put Metalist Kharkiv ahead in 37th minute.
Club Brugge claimed the point they needed to guarantee qualification as group winners in a 1-1 draw with Braga, who had already secured progression to the knockout stage. Brugge, who knew defeat coupled with a win for Birmingham would see them eliminated, led through Bjorn Vleminckx’s 50th-minute strike. Braga had Uwe Echiejile sent off for a professional foul after 16 minutes but nevertheless equalised in the 64th minute through Ewerton.
Clubs await the draw
Barcelona, InterMilan, Arsenal and Chelsea will find out their opponents in the first knockout round after the draw to be held today at Nyon. The runners up do not include big teams except AC MIlan who finished below Barca. So we may not expect a big clas as early as first knockout round although the likes of Napoli and Basel are teams the group winners will be happy to avoid.
Group winners: Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Benfica, Real Madrid, Chelsea,Arsenal, APOEL, Barcelona.
Group runners-up: Napoli, CSKA Moscow, Basel, Lyon, Bayer Leverkusen, Marseille, Zenit St Petersburg, AC Milan
Similarly Europa League draw will be held after the UCL draw where both Manchester clubs may not pay as much attention as their premier league rivals Chelsea and Arsenal.
The Europa League Qualifiers:
PAOK FC, Standard Liège, Hannover 96, PSV Eindhoven, Legia Warsaw, Sporting Lisbon, Stoke City, Athletic Bilbao, Metalist Kharkiv, Braga, Atlético Madrid, Schalke 04, Twente, Anderlecht, Lokomotiv Moscow, Lazio, Besiktas, Steaua Bucharest, Salzburg, Wisla Krakow, Rubin Kazan, Club Brugge, Udinese, AZ Alkmaar, Man City, Trabzonspor, Man Utd, Ajax, Valencia, Olympiakos, Porto, Viktoria Plzen.
The round of 32 draw will see the 12 group winners and the four best third-ranked teams from the Champions League group stage drawn against the 12 Europa League runners-up and the four remaining third-ranked teams from the Champions League. Winners and runners-up from the same group cannot face each other, and neither can teams from the same country.
