This past week saw the Champions League group stages reach its climax with sixteen teams exiting stage right from the greatest tournament in club football. As is the norm of tournament football there are always some shocking exits at the early stages and it is here where I break down what went wrong for each side that has surprisingly been knocked out of the tournament.
SHAKTHAR DONETSK (Finished 3rd in Group A)
Donetsk has enjoyed quite a bit of success in recent years. The Ukrainian unit have done the domestic double for three consecutive seasons now and reached the knockout stages of the Champions League twice in the last five seasons. However, the 2009 UEFA Cup winners missed out this year to a struggling Manchester United side and a Bayern Leverkusen side on the ascendancy. Also Donetsk have sold quite a few of their top players on including last season’s top scorer Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Dortmund and Fernandinho to Manchester City. Therefore taking that into consideration, then it is no wonder that Shakhtar Donetsk find themselves playing in Europe’s second tournament. Real Sociedad proved to be the whipping boys of the group.
JUVENTUS (Finished 3rd in Group B)
This has been a bad Champions League for Italian football and the exit of the Serie A Champions has come as a bit of a surprise. The Bianconeri have failed to replicate their domestic form in Europe and were always on the back foot following their draw against FC Copenhagen in the opening round of fixtures. I would not have expected much from Juve against the Real Madrid powerhouse but would have thought that they could have beaten Roberto Mancini’s Galatasaray; the same manager that could not lead Manchester City to the knockout stages in the Champions League. This was an easy draw and with the array of talent and experience Juventus has, the footballing world was quite right in expecting better. Manager Antonio Conte will not get the sack for the Old Lady’s early exit but if they fail to win a trophy this season then expect huge pressure on Conte’s head.
BENFICA (Finished 3rd in Group C)
Benfica have and always will be a tough team to come across in the Champions League. The current league leaders in Portgual had to face off against the champions and league leaders of both, France and Greece, Paris Saint Germain and Olympiakos, with Anderlecht completing the group. Whilst it was expected that last year’s quarter-finalists PSG would finish top of the group, one would have predicted that Benfica would have also progressed to the next stage since the Portugese league is a better league than the one in Greece. Well that assumption was wrong. Maybe it is a damning indictment of how Portugese football has declined in recent years since Benfica lost out to Celtic last season too.
NAPOLI (Finished 3rd in Group F)
At the time of the Champions League draw, Rafael Benitez’s Napoli side were sitting second in Serie A and given their recent history in Europe, they were rightly considered dark horses to reach the latter stages of the tournament. Unfortunately they were drawn into the group of death which contained Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund and Marseille. This is proof that the current UEFA coefficient system is awful as it allowed four very successful teams to compete against each other and whoever exited the group (barring Marseille) would be sorely missed for the remainder of the tournament. They did themselves proud Napoli getting twelve points in the process.
MARSEILLE (Finished 4th in Group F)
They had a minimal chance of progression but for them to lose all six games is a huge disappointment for a side hoping to come out of the tournament with a few points under their belt.
FC PORTO (Finished 3rd in Group G)
FC Porto are having a terrible time at the moment as they currently sit second in Portugal’s top flight (for those new to European football, they usually dominate Portugese football). I would have tipped them to finish second in the group, miles behind Atletico Madrid. I was right about the latter but not the former. They have lost two key talents in Joao Moutinho and James Rodriguez to Monaco but one could use that same excuse for Zenit St Petersburg who finished second in their group with their losses of Igor Denisov and Bruno Alves. Needless to say, the best team that isn’t Atletico in that group was Austria Vienna who managed the same amount of points as Porto. That’s how bad that group was.
AJAX (Finished 3rd in Group H)
Ajax had a huge opportunity to progress from a relatively weak group and considering they managed a big 2-1 victory over Barcelona in gameweek five. All they had to do was defeat an AC Milan who currently have a lot of issues on and off the field; this is reflected by the fact that the Rossoneri are currently placed 12th in Serie A at the time of writing. Instead they have blown a chance of getting into the last 16 as they only drew with a poor Milan side 0-0. Ajax is an exciting young side that could have a bright future if they manage to keep hold of their talents. They also could have done better in this group and a 1-0 defeat on the road to Celtic is the definition of wasting an opportunity.
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