The final qualification matches were played on Tuesday and Wednesday and it is now known which 16 teams would be playing in the next stage of Champions League.
In Group A Liverpool, Marseilles and Porto had the chance to progress through to the next stage. Porto defeated Beskitas by 2 goals to 0 while in the other game of the group; Liverpool defeated Marseilles in Marseilles by an emphatic 4-0 scoreline.
Steve Gerrard opened the scoring on 4 minutes with a penalty while Fernando scored a superb second to put the Reds 2 goals up in the 1st 11 minutes of play. Dirk Kuyt. Early in the 2nd half and Ryan Babel in the dying minutes completed the rout.
Porto finished as group winners with Liverpool following them through as runners up. Marseilles’ consolation is to feature in the UEFA cup for coming 3rd.
In Group B Chelsea had already qualified as winners and the only issue was which team would follow then as runners up.
All the remaining teams had a chance of qualification with Schalke defeating Rosenborg 3-1 with Kevin Kuranyi amongst the goals in a straight shootout to see which of the teams would qualify while Valencia could only draw at Chelsea.
This meant that Schalke qualified as runner up and Rosenborg qualified for UEFA cup with Valencia going out altogether after a bitterly disappointing campaign.
In Group C all 4 teams could still qualify and they all had something to play for. Real Madrid defeated lazio by 3 goals to 1 with Raul increasing his goal scoring lead at the top by scoring the 2nd goal with a header as they totally outclassed their Italian opponents.
Julio Baptista and Robinho scoring either side of Raul and Darko Pandev scoring Lazio’s consolation goal.
In the other game Olympiakos defeated Werder Bremen by 3 goals to 0 with Ieroklis Stoltidis scoring a brace and Darko Kovacevic scoring the other.
This meant that Real topped the group, Olympiakos came second and Werder Bremen having the consolation of UEFA cup.
In Group D Milan had already qualified and they wanted to top the group while Celtic, Shakhtar Donesk and Benfica all had something to play for as Celtic could still qualify as wiiners or runner up and Shakhtar could still qualify as runner up while Benfica had the chance to play in UEFA.
Milan defeated Celtic by a Filipo Inzaghi goal and they were anxious as to what was going on in the Shakhtar but they needn’t had worried as Benfica won in Moscow by 2 goals to 1 with Oscar Cardozo grabbing a brace and Cristiano Lucarelli scoring a penalty for the host but it was not enough.
Milan qualified as winners with Celtic joining them in the next stage and Benfica grabbing the UEFA spot.
In group E, Barcelona had already qualified as winners and they routinely defeated Stuttgart 3-1 with the returning Samuel Etoo and Ronaldinho amongst the goals.
Lyon and Rangers knew that the winner of this their game would qualify or in the event of a draw, Ranger would go through but Lyon defeated Ranger by 3 goals to win reversing the scoreline of their first meeting in Lyon when Ranger surprisingly won 3-0.
It may have been different if Jean-Claude Darchville did not miss a complete sitter that would have made it 1-1 with 9 minutes to go but they fell down to 2 goals from Karim Benzema and another from Sidney Gogou.
Rangers at least have the consolation of UEFA football in the New Year.
In group F all the qualifiers had been known with Manchester United topping group and Roma coming second. They played out a 1-1 draw with both sides fielding weakened teams understandably.
Sporting defeated the hapless Dinamo Kiev, 3-0, who went the whole campaign losing every game.
In Group G Inter Milan that had already won the group defeated 10-man PSV Eindhoven by a Julio Cruz goal to nil in Eindhoven.
In the other game Fenerbache defeated CSKA Moscow by 3 goals to 1 with Alex scoring 1 of the best goals of the competition so far.
Fenerbache qualified alongside Inter with PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA cup.
In Group H, the only issue was which side Arsenal or Sevilla would top the group and it was Sevilla as they won in Prague by beating Slavia Prague 3-0 with the inform Luis Fabiano opening the scoring and Freddi Kanoute and Daniel Alves completing the scoring.
Arsenal, with goals from Abou Dialby and Nicklas Bendtner defeated Steaua Bucharest 2-1.
Slavia Prague with just 5 points qualified for UEFA by coming 3rd.
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