Barca Advance In UCL

Barca players celebrate with Lionel Messi.
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December 9, 2009

Champions Barcelona secured their place in the UEFA Champions League knockout stages with a nervy 2-1 victory over Dynamo Kiev on Wednesday.

Coupled with Inter Milan's 2-0 home success over Rubin Kazan, it means the two European giants advance from a pool that was keenly contested to the last. Kazan drop to the UEFA Europa League.

It did not start well for Barca as Victor Valdes fumbled Artem Milevskiy's glancing header into his own net, but Xavi equalised a magnificent late free-kick from the brilliant Lionel Messi sealed the win.

Ghana-born youngster Mario Balotelli was the star Inter, first setting up Samuel Eto'o for the opening goal and then smashing home a superb free-kick to seal the points.

There was more misery in Group E for Liverpool though. Their 2-1 home defeat to Fiorentina did not change the fact that they were always destined to drop to the Europa League, but will continue to pile the pressure on underfire boss Rafa Benitez.

Israeli winger Yossi Benayoun headed Liverpool into the lead, only for Martin Jorgensen and Alberto Gilardino to seal the points for the visitors and top the pool.

Lyon comfortably overcame Hungarian minnows Debrecen 4-0. Bafetimbi Gomis, Michel Bastos, Miralem Pjanic and Aly Cissokho were the scorers for the French side.

Greeks side Olympiakos sealed their place in the knockout stages with a 1-0 home victory over pool winners Arsenal as Leonardo scored the all-important goal in the second half.

Standard Liege sealed their place in the Europa League as goalkeeper Sinan Bolat scored a last-minute equaliser to deny Dutch side AZ Alkmaar. Jeremain Lens opened the scoring for AZ, but Bolat headed home in the dying seconds to secure a vital point.

Fredi Kanoute scored as Sevilla beat bottom side Rangers 1-0 in Spain, and German side Stuttgart joined the Spaniards in the knockout stages with a commanding 3-1 win at home to Romanian surprise-package Unirea Urziceni.

Amazingly, all three Stuttgart goals came within the opening 11 minutes of the game as Ciprian Marica, Christian Trasch and Pavel Pogrebnyak scored. Antonio Semedo netted in the second half for the visitors, who will now play in the Europa League.