On another night of drama in the Champions League Lyon, Basel and Napoli all moved onto the round of 16, while last season’s beaten finalist Manchester United was sent to the Europa League.
The most unlikely team to progress to the knock stages was Lyon, who needed Ajax to lose at home to Real Madrid while they beat Dinamo Zagreb and overturned a seven-goal deficit. When Dinamo went one-up it seemed that Lyon’s record of progressing from the group stage every year since 2002/03 was coming to an end. But after a goal right before half-time Lyon went all out in the second half, scoring six goals to win 7-1. With Real Madrid beating Ajax 3-0, Lyon somehow had qualified for the knockout stages.
The other big shock was in Switzerland where Basel beat Manchester United 2-1 with goals from Marco Streller and Alexander Frei to overtake the English champions in Group C. Benfica topped that section after a 1-0 home win against Otelul Galati put them on 12 points.
CSKA Moscow pulled off another unlikely result as they won 2-1 at Group B winners Inter, Vasili Berezutski’s 86th-minute decider lifting them from fourth to second as after Lille and Trabzonspor finished goalless.
In Group A, Manchester City looked on course to progress when they took a 2-0 lead against Bayern Munich. But Napoli dashed City’s hopes of progressing to the knockout stages when they beat Villarreal 2-0 in Spain.
