Man City beats PSG, but both will advance
Manchester City and Real Madrid are back in the Champions League knockout stage after beating teams they lost to in September on Wednesday.
Paris Saint-Germain also goes through to the round of 16 despite its 2-1 loss at City. Kylian Mbappe’s goal early in the second half gave PSG the lead, but Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus answered for City.
Madrid’s 3-0 win at Sheriff ensured Inter Milan also advanced from Group D by beating Shakhtar Donetsk 2-0.
Sporting Lisbon ended a 13year wait by beating Borussia Dortmund 3-1.
Ajax (2-1 at Besiktas) and Liverpool (2-0 win over Porto) extended their dominating group-stage campaigns with fifth straight wins.
AC Milan is still in contention after getting an 87th-minute goal from a 30-year-old Champions League debutant to win 1-0 at Atletico Madrid. Former truck driver Junior Messias’ goal left both teams with four points, with Milan next hosting Liverpool and last-place Atletico going to Porto.
⏩ Less than a week after leaving LAFC, Bob Bradley is an MLS head coach again, landing at Toronto FC, where he will also was named sporting director. Bradley, 63, will be reunited with son Michael, the team’s captain. Bradley replaces interim coach Javier Perez and general manager Ali Curtis.
⏩ Karim Benzema, a French national who plays for Real Madrid, was found guilty by a French court on charges that he was part of an attempt to blackmail fellow player Mathieu Valbuena in a case involving a sex tape, a scandal that caused Benzema to be excluded from France’s national soccer team for more than five years.
Benzema, 33, was given a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of about $84,000. Lawyers for Benzema, who has denied the charges, said he would appeal.
⏩ Security forces in Qatar detained two journalists from Norwegian state television, Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani, for over 30 hours and deleted footage they gathered at a migrant labor camp as they tried to report on worker issues ahead of the FIFA 2022 World Cup, authorities said.
The arrests, a year ahead of the World Cup, show the sensitivity felt by the autocratic government of Qatar, a small, energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula.