Quartet secure progress
United made to wait after PSV stalemate
PARIS: Last season’s beaten finalists Juventus joined Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid and Benfica in clinching qualification for the last 16 of the Champions League with one round of group games to spare on Wednesday.
Mario Mandzukic turned in Alex Sandro’s cross to give Juventus a 1-0 win over Manchester City in Turin and ensure that the Italian champions joined City in qualifying from Group D.
City had already secured their progress before the game but the defeat leaves them two points behind Juventus with one match remaining and therefore staring at the prospect of finishing second in the group and facing a tougher last-16 draw.
City let their fate slip out of their hands when Mandzukic struck in the 18th minute, just after Fernandinho had missed a golden opportunity for the visitors.
The Sky Blues were guilty of having spurned a number of good chances and midfielder Yaya Toure paid the price for their lack of killer instinct in front of goal.
“It’s part of football — to win, you have to score goals — but we missed chances and these things can happen,” Toure told reporters after the game.
“We are quite disappointed. It was a 50-50 game and we had a lot more chances than them but we were not clinical.
“We had chances to score but at the end of the day, it was 1-0 for them and we have to bounce back in the next game.”
City have now failed to win three consecutive games for the first time this season.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side were without six first-team players for the trip to Italy, with Wilfried Bony, Pablo Zabaleta, Eliaquim Mangala, Vincent Kompany, Samir Nasri and David Silva sidelined through injury.
To add to their injury woes, goalkeeper Joe Hart was forced off the field on the 81st minute with a reported hamstring problem.
“Hats off to the lads, they’ve gifted me qualification with a game to spare,” said Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri.
As it happened, Juve would have been through regardless of their result because Sevilla lost 4-2 to Borussia Moenchengladbach in Germany.
Lars Stindl scored twice for Gladbach either side of a brilliant Fabian Johnson goal and a Raffael strike with Vitolo and Ever Banega, from a penalty, replying for Sevilla.
Sevilla, Europa League winners in each of the last two seasons, now must beat Juve in their final game and hope Gladbach don’t defeat City just to claim the consolation of dropping into the secondary competition.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic captained PSG as he returned to face Malmo, his hometown team and the club where his glittering career began, and he was among the scorers in a 5-0 romp that took the French champions through from Group A.
Adrien Rabiot and Angel Di Maria netted in the first half before Ibrahimovic finished past Johan Wiland early in the second period.
Markus Rosenberg missed a penalty for Malmo before Di Maria scored again and substitute Lucas curled in a free-kick to complete the rout.
“I lived a dream tonight, coming back. On top of that I scored one. I’m very happy,” said Ibrahimovic.
However, Real Madrid, who had already qualified, secured top spot in the group with an entertaining 4-3 win away to Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine.
A Cristiano Ronaldo brace either side of a Luka Modric goal and a delightful Dani Carvajal chip had Madrid out of sight but Shakhtar set up a grandstand finale with three goals in the last 13 minutes.
Alex Teixeira scored two of them, the first a penalty, while Dentinho also scored, but Rafa Benitez’s under-pressure side held on.
“Today everything went our way for most of the game,” Benitez said. “But Shakhtar are a strong and aggressive team. There’s no surprise that they have scored at home.
“We’ve conceded 10 goals in our last three matches but today we acted as a single unit, as a team and that’s a very encouraging sign.”
Shakhtar are out but have third place and a Europa League place in their hands.
Shakhtar manager Mircea Lucescu said: “We committed too many blunders and allowed Real to dominate play and score four times.
“You couldn’t imagine that we would produce such a dramatic comeback. But my team showed strong character to save our pride and the club’s reputation.”
Atletico and Benfica will meet in Lisbon in two weeks to decide who finishes top of Group C after both qualified for the next phase on Wednesday.
Atletico eased to a 2-0 victory over Galatasaray at the Vicente Calderon with Antoine Griezmann scoring both from Gabi assists, while Benfica came from two goals down earlier in the day to draw 2-2 at Astana.
Ghanaian forward Patrick Twumasi put Astana ahead in Kazakhstan and Marin Anicic doubled their lead on 31 minutes.
However, Mexican forward Raul Jimenez pulled one back before half-time and then levelled the scores in the 72nd minute, and a draw against Atletico will see Benfica win the group.
In contrast, there is still all to play for in Group B with Manchester United playing out a disappointing 0-0 draw against PSV Eindhoven at Old Trafford.
On a night when Old Trafford marked 10 years since the death of United legend George Best, the hosts knew a win would take them through but created few genuine chances.
“The result is disappointing because I have still the feeling that we could have finished this game several times,” said United manager Louis van Gaal.
Wolfsburg are now top of the group after Andre Schuerrle came off the bench to provoke an Igor Akinfeev own goal and score one of his own in a 2-0 defeat of CSKA Moscow in Russia.
As a result, United now need to win their final game at Wolfsburg on Dec 8 to be certain of a place in the knockout phase, with PSV also still in contention.