Champions League Shocks

Despite dominating the first half of the season domestically, both Manchester clubs crashed out of the UEFA Champions league in spectacular fashion. City beat Bayern Munich but could do nothing to prevent Napoli winning away to qualify with the Germans.

United dominated possession and another referee may have stopped play for the first goal and a late smash and grab in the last ten minutes saw Basle win 2-1 and send United with their collective tais between their legs.

So who did manage to qualify on a dramatic match day 6. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Arsenal, Benfica, Inter Milan and Apoel Nicosia all qualified as group winners.
Napoli, CSKA Moscow, Basle, Lyon, AC Milan, Bayer Leverkusen, Marseille and Zenit St.Petersburg are the qualifiers through finishing second.

Obviously I think the English teams would rather not draw AC Milan and could also do without a trip to Russia mid season. Lyon scored 7 goals on match day 6 and on their day can beat anyone.
I still don't think Barcelona are quite at their level from the last two seasons and although Real Madrid are the only team left unbeaten I am going to have to stick to my pre tournament prediction.

Through virtue of both the same nationality, Bayern Munich will avoid Bayer Leverkusen. They would be unlucky to draw AC Milan but would still fancy their chances. The only team that has the ability to beat Bayern Munich from the second place qualifiers so if Bayern can avoid them then they will have potentially tip toed quietly into the quarter finals. With the final at their stadium and the young German team they are building there, it's going to take a good team to knock them out.

Getting back to the amount of English clubs left in this seasons knock out stage, it doesn't automatically mean that there has been a drop in the English game. No country has more than two teams in the competition. There has been some crazzy matches and Man City, Man United, Porto, Valencia, Ajax, Olympiakos, Plzen and Trabzonspor will all play in the Europa League round of 32.

Things could be worse. Joe Cole's Lille, Villarreal, Borussia Dortmund and Shakhtar Donestk all go out of european football for this season all together.