Spurs, Eintracht advance; Atletico Madrid go out of Europe

Sports Desk, Nov 1 (EFE).- Tottenham Hotspur and Eintracht Frankfurt came from behind Tuesday to grab first and second place, respectively, in Champions League Group D and advance to the knockout stage, while already eliminated Atletico Madrid saw the consolation of a Europa League berth snatched away.

In Group C, where nothing was at stake in the final Match Day of the group stage, winners Bayern Munich bested Inter Milan to stay perfect and Europa League-bound Barcelona beat Viktoria Plzen.

Liverpool avenged themselves against Napoli for the embarrassing rout on Match Day 1 in Italy, but still finished second in Group A behind the Serie A club.

Porto won Group B thanks to a combination of their 2-1 win over Atleti and Club Brugge’s 0-0 draw with Bayer Leverkusen. The Belgian side advance as the second-place qualifiers and Bayer are headed to the Europa League.

Hosts Olympique Marseille dominated the first half against Spurs and only a succession of fine stops by Hugo Lloris kept the margin at the break to 1-0 on Chancel Mbembu’s goal in minute 45+2.

Clement Lenglet brought the visitors level in the 54th minute and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg hit the cross-bar with nine minutes left in regulation.

Sead Kolasinac missed the target with a chance to win it for Marseille in the 87th and Spurs – needing only a point to advance – walked away with all 3 thanks to Hojbjerg’s goal deep in stoppage time.

Marseille are out of Europe.

Sporting led Eintracht 1-0 at the half on Arthur’s goal in the 39th minute, but the 2021-2022 Europa League winners equalized just past the hour mark, as Daichi Kamada converted a penalty for hand ball in the box.

Randal Kolo Muani produced the go-ahead goal for the German side in the 72nd minute, relegating Sporting to the Europa League.

Napoli came into Tuesday’s contest at Anfield 3 points ahead of Liverpool and without a loss in their first 17 matches of the campaign in all competitions.

The Italian side left as Group A winners, but the unbeaten streak was broken as Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nuñez scored for the Reds and Napoli’s only goal, by Leo Skiri Ostigard, was disallowed for offside.

Though the two teams ended the group stage level on points at 15, Napoli prevailed because of their 4-1 winning margin over Liverpool in the first game.

Mehdi Taremi and Stephen Eustaquio put Porto ahead of 2-0 inside the first 25 minutes and the Ivan Marcano own goal in stoppage time that cut the deficit in half for Atletico was too little, too late.

Bayer and Atletico Madrid each ended the group stage with 5 points, but the Bundesliga club took 4 points from their two matches against the Colchoneros.

With nothing on the line, Barcelona coach Xavi fielded many subs against Viktoria and the Blaugrana prevailed 4-2. Ferran Torres had a brace and the other goals came from Marcos Alonso and Pablo Torres. EFE /dr