Liverpool, Manchester City, and Barcelona have secured their places in the last 16 of the Champions League following the final round of league-phase matches on Wednesday. They are joined by Tottenham and Chelsea, ensuring five English teams advance directly.<\/p>\n
However, reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain and 15-time winners Real Madrid both failed to secure a top-eight finish and will proceed to the knockout play-off round.<\/p>\n
English Clubs Dominate Top Eight<\/p>\n
At Anfield, Liverpool confirmed their place with a decisive 6-0 victory over Qarabag. Goals came from Alexis Mac Allister (2), Florian Wirtz, Mohamed Salah, Hugo Ekitike, and Federico Chiesa. The win placed them third in the final 36-team table.<\/p>\n
Manchester City, the 2023 champions, earned their spot with a 2-0 win against Galatasaray, with Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki scoring. Tottenham secured fourth place by defeating Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0, while Chelsea eliminated Serie A champions Napoli with a 3-2 victory in a closely contested match.<\/p>\n
Barcelona Rallies for Victory<\/p>\n
Barcelona recovered from an early deficit to defeat FC Copenhagen 4-1 at Camp Nou, finishing fifth overall. After conceding in the fourth minute, Barcelona responded with goals from Robert Lewandowski, Lamine Yamal, Raphinha, and Marcus Rashford to secure their last-16 berth.<\/p>\n
PSG and Real Madrid Face Play-offs<\/p>\n
Paris Saint-Germain was held to a 1-1 draw at home by Newcastle. Despite a goal from Vitinha, an equalizer from Joe Willock means PSG must navigate the play-offs, a route they also took on their way to winning the title last season.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid suffered a 4-2 defeat to Benfica in a dramatic match that saw Benfica’s goalkeeper, Anatoliy Trubin, score a 98th-minute header to secure the final play-off spot for his team. The loss means the Spanish club also misses out on direct qualification.<\/p>\n
Other clubs confirmed for the play-off round include Inter Milan, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, and Galatasaray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool, Manchester City, and Barcelona have secured their places in the last 16 of the Champions League following the final round of league-phase matches on Wednesday. They are joined by Tottenham and Chelsea, ensuring five English teams advance directly. However, reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain and 15-time winners Real Madrid both failed to secure a top-eight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[1837,662,289],"class_list":["post-26955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-c1","tag-eur","tag-fbl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26958,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26955\/revisions\/26958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}