A blue day for England as Chelsea advances
Blues, Arsenal among the teams to book spots in soccer’s sweet 16
MADRID— Arsenal left its best performance for the last game of the Champions League group stage, advancing to the round of 16 with a remarkable 3-0 victory at Olympiakos on Wednesday. Chelsea also went through on a good night for English soccer with a 2-0 home win over FC Porto.
“I told you before that it would be the greatest escape,” Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger said.
Both Arsenal and Chelsea were trying to avoid following in the footsteps of fellow Premier League club Manchester United, which was eliminated on Tuesday.
Here is a group-by-group look at Wednesday’s matches:
GROUP E
With nothing to play for, group winner Barcelona played Bayer Leverkusen to a 1-1 draw with a largely reserve side bolstered by Lionel Messi. And the Barcelona captain came through again, scoring his 80th Champions League goal.
He collected a perfect through ball from Ivan Rakitic and rounded the goalkeeper to score in the 20th. Javier (Chicharito) Hernandez levelled three minutes later but it was too little for Leverkusen to advance.
In Rome, the hosts did the bare minimum against BATE Borisov and the 0-0 draw was enough to place it second behind Barcelona. Roma and Leverkusen each finished with six points but Roma held the edge with a better head-to-head record. BATE finished last with five points.
GROUP F
Olivier Giroud scored a hat trick as Arsenal advanced with a 3-0 win over Olympiakos, overturning an ad- vantage held by the Greeks ahead of the final match.
The France striker opened the scoring in the 29th minute and struck again four minutes after halftime. He closed the scoring by converting a penalty kick in the 67th.
Olympiakos, which beat Arsenal 3-2 in London, would have advanced with a draw.
Group winner Bayern Munich beat Dinamo Zagreb 2-0 with a pair of goals by striker Robert Lewandow-
ski.
GROUP G
Chelsea finally had something to celebrate in its unexpectedly poor season after qualifying for the knockout phase with a 2-0 home victory over Porto.
The hosts scored through an own goal by Ivan Marcano in the 12th and Willian sealed the victory in the 52nd.
Chelsea not only avoided the em- barrassment of dropping into the Europa League, but Jose Mourinho’s team advanced as the group winner. His former club, Porto, finished third and was eliminated.
Dynamo Kyiv advanced in second place thanks to a1-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv in Ukraine.
GROUP H
Gent gave Belgium a spot in the knockout stage after beating group winner Zenit St. Petersburg 2-1 with goals by Laurent Depoitre and Danijel Milicevic.
Even a defeat would have been enough for Gent because Lyon went to Valencia and beat the hosts 2-0.
“They were better than us and there’s no excuse,” said Valencia coach Gary Neville, the former Manchester United and England defender who took over the Spanish club on Sunday.
Zenit easily won the group with 15 points, five more than Gent.