Marseille (AFP)
Tottenham Hotspur and Eintracht Frankfurt decided the fourth group tickets to the Champions League final, while Bayern Munich became the only German to finish the group stage with a “full mark”, after losing Napoli, Italy, in the deadly time at Liverpool, 0-2 in the last sixth round. .
Unlike the other seven groups, in which at least one ticket to the final price was decided, the fourth group entered the last round and the conflict is still wide open, for the first two places.
And by beating its French host Marseille 2-1 at the “Stade Velodrome”, after it was behind, Tottenham remained in the lead with 11 points, and a point ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt, who took the runner-up from Sporting Portugal, by beating them at home 2-1 as well, and thus bypassing the role of groups for the first time since the start of the Champions League in 1992.
The Portuguese team will complete its continental campaign in the “European League”, after finishing third with seven points, while Marseille, the only French team to win the title “1993”, came out empty-handed by receiving the fourth defeat.
In Marseille, the hosts advanced through Congolese Chancel Mbemba, while Frenchman Clement Langlet equalized for the guests.
While the match was heading to finish the “Spurs” group in the “runners-up” behind Eintracht Frankfurt and Marseille to the “European League” supplement, the Danish Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg snatched the winning goal and the lead for Tottenham in stoppage time, to completely end the continental career of the French team.
With Tottenham, whose Italian coach Antonio Conte was suspended, qualified, the four representatives of England will be in the final price after Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea preceded him.
Tottenham goalkeeper and captain Hugo Lloris, who was named man of the match, said: “There was a psychological battle, we felt as if they had nothing to lose at the beginning, and then things changed in the second half, after they scored at the end of the first.”
“We suffered but we showed character in the second half, Marseille is a very good team, things were difficult in front of their fans.”
In Lisbon, Sporting advanced through Brazilian Arthur Gomes, but the champion of Eintracht Frankfurt, the “European League” champion last season, won with goals from Japan’s Daiichi Kamada from a penalty kick and French Randall Kolo Mwani.
Eintracht Frankfurt captain Sebastian Rode, who was named player of the match, said: We continue the European adventure, and this is the new achievement for Eintracht Frankfurt. To fulfill the coach’s request, he congratulated me for being one of the influential players.
In the third, Bayern renewed its victory over its Italian guest, Inter, 2-0, to end the group stage with a “full mark”.
The two teams entered the match, having previously guaranteed their qualification against Barcelona, Spain and Viktoria Plzen, the Czech Republic, as the Bavarian team was a guarantor of the lead.
However, Bayern refused to become the only team in the history of the tournament to achieve the “full mark” in the group stage three times thanks to goals from Frenchman Benjamin Bavar and Cameroonian Eric-Maxime Choupo-Moting.
This is only the eleventh time that any team has achieved six victories from six matches in the first round.
After losing his hopes of reaching the final price for the second season in a row, and only qualifying for the qualifying play-off to the European League final price, Barcelona achieved a 4-2 moral victory over its host Victoria Plzen.
Ferran Torres scored a “double”, Marcos Alonso and Pablo Toure scored Barcelona’s goals, and Thomas Chori scored the two goals for the hosts.
In Group A, Liverpool inflicted its first defeat on its guest Napoli this season in all competitions, with a late victory over it 2-0.
The two teams played the match, and they are the two guarantors of qualifying for the final price with Napoli in the lead, three points behind the English team, which needed to win by four goals or more to compensate for the 1-4 loss and remove coach Luciano Spalletti’s team from the lead.
After he emerged victorious from his last 13 matches, locally and continentally, and did not lose any of the first 17 matches in all competitions, the record series for Naples in terms of the number of victories was stopped (the previous number was 11 wins, a season he achieved in 1986 led by Maradona), after he was unable to enhance his wonderful scoring record. The season “50 goals”, before receiving two fatal goals that were calculated after resorting to the “mouse” through the Egyptian Mohamed Salah and the Uruguayan substitute Darwin Nunes.
With the two group tickets decided, the Dutch Ajax was playing in Scotland in order to hold on to the third place qualifying for the “Europe League”, and it was decided in its favor by beating Rangers 3-1.
In the second group, Porto took the lead and prevented its guest, Atletico Madrid, from continuing his continental campaign in the “Europe League” by winning 2-1.
Porto, the competition champion in 1987 and 2004, entered the last round and guaranteed its qualification, like Club Brugge, who led by a point over the Portuguese team, but gave up the lead in favor of coach Sergio Conceição’s team after a 0-0 draw with its German host Bayer Leverkusen.
Thanks to the difference in the two direct confrontations between the two teams, Leverkusen grabbed third place from Atletico and moved to continue his continental campaign in the “European League”.
Porto settled the three points before half an hour to the start, with Iranian Mehdi Taremi advancing, then Canadian Stephen Ostakiou added the second.
Atletico woke up late and waited until injury time, to reach the net with a gift from Spaniard Ivan Marcano, who accidentally turned the ball into his net.
And the French striker of Atletico Antoine Griezmann admitted in a statement to the Spanish channel “Movistar”: We did not deserve to qualify for the final price, or even to the “European League.” This is the truth, if you win only one match, this is what you get.
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