The second spot is very much up for grabs after Olympiacos were beaten two-nil by Standard Liege. An Mbokani goal and a late strike from Jovanović ensured that they still have hope in qualification for the next round. Liege was looking much hungrier in the opening stages and took the lead, but when Mangala missed a golden opportunity for the Belgian side, it seemed Olympiacos might take advantage. But the late goal confirmed that all four teams could still possibly make or miss qualification.

Summary

All up in quite an amazing Matchday, we saw Manchester United, Chelsea, Porto, Sevilla, Lyon and Bordeaux all confirm places in the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League. However, the hopes of Debecen, APOEL, Athletico, Besiktas and Maccabi Haifa all rest on qualification into the Europa League by finishing in third. Perhaps a feature that made this Matchday so dramatic was the amount of late goals scored. In total, nineteen-goals were put away in the last ten minutes alone, emphasizing how many late antics there were in several matches. Matchday 5 see’s a handful of crucial games, where many teams will look to tie up qualification before the final round.

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Gordon D'Mello

Gordon is a Journalism student at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney who has a huge passion in the field of sports writing and sport itself. Here he is a writer, senior editor and is also a co-founder of Injury Time.