The most important club tournament in the world continues and there are already teams that have secured their place in the first rounds of direct elimination. In the first part of the fifth round of the group stage, PSG, Benfica, Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund joined Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Napoli and Bruges in the fight for the prestigious trophy.
The Parisians took on the weakest link in their group to secure their qualification after a convincing 7-2 win at the Parc des Princes. To the surprise of many, the trident Messi, Neymar and Mbappé shone by being present in six of the goals they managed to score. The team now led by Christophe Galtier has 27 official matches without knowing defeat, however the Champions League is still pending after the club has invested more than 700 million dollars in signings during the last five years alone.
Benfica is one of the surprise teams of this edition, especially being in the same group as PSG and Juventus. The Eagles managed to beat the Vecchia Signora on the fifth day by 4-3 and thus secure their ticket to the round of 16. As if this were not enough, the Portuguese team continues without losing in this edition of the European tournament and has the same 11 points as the Parisians in the competition, while the Bianconeri club will have to settle for playing in the Europa League from their round of 32
Chelsea visited Austria and beat Salzburg 2-1 to move top of Group E with 10 points and end their 40-game home unbeaten run, a win that puts them in the top 16 in the tournament. For its part, Borussia Dortmund drew goalless against Manchester City, who arrived at the match already qualified and one point assured them the leadership of group G. The Bees reached eight points and, despite the fact that they can be reached by Sevilla, the goal difference between the two as a tiebreaker gives the advantage to the German team.
Although there was no fight for a ticket in the knockout phase itself, Leipzig gave a great performance against Real Madrid and, when it seemed that Shakhtar’s path could be defined towards the round of 16, the Germans beat the meringues 3-2 to get into the fight. The result meant the first official defeat for the white team since April 26, 2022 and with it, those led by Marco Rose need not lose their last match to qualify for the round of 16.
The fifth date closes with eight matches in which more qualified teams could be defined. Bayern Munich vs. Barcelona, Inter vs. Viktoria Plzen, Tottenham vs. Sporting Lisbon and Atlético de Madrid vs. Bayer Leverkusen are among the most prominent.
