UEFA Champions League Matchday 5 saw reigning champion Chelsea take a step closer to elimination, Barcelona clinch the top of Group G and Bayern Munich and Valenica both clinch spots in the knockout stage with the top of Group F still up for grabs.

Group H saw Galatasaray earn its first ever win over Manchester United in the Champions League, 1-0 in Istanbul. United did not field its strongest side, having already clinched the group after Matchday 4 and Galatasaray took advantage, outshooting United 18-8. Burak Yilmaz provided the match’s lone tally, his fifth goal of the group stage. He’s tied with Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Braga’s Alan for the tournament lead.

CFR Cluj kept pace with Galatasaray in Group H courtesy of a 3-1 victory over Braga. Both teams are tied with seven points heading into the last group stage match but Galatasaray holds the tiebreak due to head-to-head results.

Barcelona clinched Group G with a 3-0 win over Spartak Moscow and Benfica’s 2-1 victory over Celtic moved those clubs level with seven points, but Benfica holds the tiebreaker due to the head-to-head meetings.

Barcelona scored all three of its goals inside of 40 minutes with Lionel Messi scoring twice to bring his 2012 total to 80, five shy of Gerd Müller's record total from 1972. He also moved into a tie with Ruud van Nistelrooy for second all-time in Champions League history with 56 goals. Barcelona controlled the passing game as usual, completing 836 passes and bringing its tournament-leading total to 4,319.

Benfica remained unbeaten at home against Celtic in the Champions League/European Champions Cup (4-0-0). Benfica dominated the passing game today, completing 440 passes to Celtic’s 156 and 48 passes in the attacking third to Celtic’s 13. Celtic had only five touches in the Benfica penalty area and its 42 touches in the opponent’s penalty area in the group stage are fourth-fewest in this year’s tournament.

Group F saw both Bayern Munich and Valencia secure passage to the knockout stage thanks to their 1-1 draw and Lille earn its first win of this year’s group stage with a 2-0 victory away to BATE Borisov, eliminating the Belarusian side.

Bayern played with a man advantage for nearly an hour and took advantage of it, completing nearly 200 passes more than Valencia while up a man (365-186) and outshooting them 13-7 in that time. However, it was Valencia that took the lead in the 77^th minute through Sofiane Feghouli before Thomas Müller leveled in the 82^nd minute.

This was the fourth draw in the last five meetings between the two sides in the Champions League and all four draws have been by a 1-1 score. Bayern controls who will win the group heading into the last matchday due to head-to-head results so far.

Group E saw reigning champion Chelsea pushed to the brink of elimination due to a 3-0 loss at Juventus and Shakhtar Donetsk move top with a 5-2 win over FC Nordsjaelland.

Heading into Matchday 6, the only result that will see Chelsea advance is a win over Nordsjaelland coupled with a win by Shakhtar Donetsk over Juventus, as both Juventus and Shakhtar currently hold tiebreakers over Chelsea.

Chelsea completed more passes than Juventus (419-392) and had the better possession (52%-48%), but Juventus had the more effective possession. Juventus had 37 touches in the penalty area compared to only nine for Chelsea and Chelsea completed only six of its 36 passes (16.7%) into the penalty area.

The win for Juventus snapped a 10-match winless streak against English competition in the Champions League (0-9-1) dating to a 2-0 win over Newcastle in the 2002 group stage.

 

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