Defending champion Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Porto and Juventus finished the group stageat the top in the Champions League Wednesday and posed as seeded teams for the knockout round.
Manchester United drew with Aalborg 2-2 in Group E, Bayern beatLyon 3-2 in Group F, Porto defeated Arsenal 2-0 in Group G, and Juventus was forced to a 0-0 draw by BATE Borisov in Group H.
Wayne Rooney's second-half goal salvaged the draw for Man United, which trailed Aalborg at Old Trafford. But the one point made sure the Red Devils finished ahead of Villarreal, which lost at last place Celtic 2-0 in Group E.
Raul Gonzalez scored twice to lead Madrid to its 3-0 victory over Zenit St. Petersburg and become the all-time top scorer in European club competitions with 67 goals.
Juventus finished at the top because of its two victories over the Spanish club although Juventus and Madrid both piled up 12 points.
Miroslav Klose scored twice as Bayern raced into a 3-0 lead at Lyon, which replied through Sidney Govou and Karim Benzema.
Both Porto and Arsenal had already qualified but goals by BrunoAlves and Lisandro Lopez gave the Portuguese club first place.
The other four group winners going into the Dec. 19 draw are ASRoma, Panathinaikos, Barcelona and Liverpool. The eight runners upare Chelsea, Inter Milan, Sporting Lisbon, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal, Lyon, Arsenal and Madrid.
The eight third-place teams which drop into the UEFA Cup are Bordeaux, Werder Bremen, Shakhtar Donetsk, Marseille, Aalborg, Fiorentina, Dynamo Kiev and defending champion Zenit St. Petersburg.
(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2008)
