The knockout phase of the Champions League will take place without Italian champions Napoli. Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid slip out of the top 8.
Napoli lost 3-2 at home to Chelsea after conceding two goals in the final half-hour. Before the break, coach Antonio Conte's team had turned around a 2-1 deficit. Napoli finished 30th in the table, while Chelsea stayed in the top eight and progressed directly to the round of 16.
The evening was also disappointing for Real Madrid. The Madrilenians, coached on an interim basis by Alvaro Arbeloa, lost 4-2 at Benfica Lisbon under Real's former coach Jose Mourinho despite Kylian Mbappé's Champions League goals 12 and 13 in the eighth game and will have to go into the play-offs (round of 16) in ninth place. Benfica's fourth goal in stoppage time led the Portuguese side into the play-offs in extremis.
Paris Saint-Germain Inter Milan suffered the same fate as Real. Title-holders PSG had to settle for a 1-1 draw at home to Newcastle after taking the lead and missing a handball penalty from Ousmane Dembélé. Inter Milan, with Yann Sommer and Manuel Akanji, could only manage 10th place after a 2-0 win at Borussia Dortmund.
FC Barcelona secured their place in the round of 16 against FC Copenhagen (4-1) with four goals in the second half. Manchester City, featuring ex-Citizens Leroy Sané and Ilkay Gündogan, left nothing to chance in their own stadium against Galatasaray Istanbul (2:0), scoring goals from Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki in the first half-hour to put the game beyond doubt.
A little Cinderella story was written by the Norwegians of Bodö/Glimt, who in the last three rounds with a 2:2 against Dortmund, a 3:1 against Manchester and the 2:1 at Atlético Madrid on Wednesday evening still lifted themselves into the top 24 and thus into the playoffs. Also in the play-offs (round of 16) are Monaco with Switzerland's Philipp Köhn and Denis Zakaria (0-0 against Juventus Turin) and Bayer Leverkusen thanks to a 3-0 home win against Villarreal.
Arsenal, first in the league phase and Premier League leaders, also won their eighth game at home against Kairat Almaty (3-2 thanks to goals from Viktor Gyökeres, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli).
The draw for the play-offs will take place on Friday at 12.00 noon in Nyon. The teams in places 9 to 16 are seeded and will face a team from places 17 to 24. The teams will be grouped according to their ranking. The ninth and tenth-placed teams will each play an opponent from 23rd and 24th place and so on. The playoffs will be played on February 17/18 and 24/25.
