Barcelo, Atletico win their groups

Madrid, Nov 24: FC Barcelo and Atletico Madrid clinched top spots in their Champions League groups, consigning Bayern Munich and Manchester City to the second knockout stage berths from Groups D and C, respectively.

Atletico, playing in front of the home crowd at their Vicente Calderon stadium, beat PSV Eindhoven 2-0 here on Wednesday to preserve their perfect record in the 2016-17 Champions group stage, reports Efe.

Kevin Gameiro and Antoine Griezmann scored to bring Atletico to 15 points, six ahead of German champions Bayern Munich, who fell 3-2 to FC Rostov in Wednesday’s major upset.

Barcelo’s star striker Lionel Messi, who missed Barcelo’s last La Liga contest against Malaga, scored both the goals in a 2-0 victory over Celtic in Glasgow that assured the Catalan club of the top spot in Group C with 12 points.

The Argentine’s eighth and ninth goals of the 2016-17 Champions League season boosted his scoring total in intertiol club competitions to 100.

England’s Manchester City have eight points after maging only a 1-1 draw away to Germany’s Borussia Monchengladbach.

In Group B, meanwhile, a pair of draws on Wednesday left everything to be decided in next month’s fil matches.

While poli was held 0-0 at home by Dymo Kiev, Benfica took a 3-0 lead over Besiktas only to concede three goals in the second half.

poli and Benfica each have eight points, one ahead of Besiktas.

Arsel and Paris Saint-Germain will advance from Group A, but the order of the finish will remain in suspense until match-day six is in the books.

The two leaders faced each other Wednesday at the Emirates Stadium in London, where the hosts took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Edinson Cavani.

Olivier Giroud converted a pelty to put Arsel level just before half-time and the hosts looked to have secured the victory when PSG’s Marco Verrati gave up an own goal, but Arsel’s Alex Iwobi returned the favour and the contest ended 2-2.

PSG and Arsel have 11 points each, though the English club enjoy a slight advantage on goal differential.

Basel and Ludogorets played out a 0-0 draw in Wednesday’s other Group A match. IANS