The Daily Bee: The Champions League Group Stage Is Coming To a Close

Hey Everyone! It’s Wednesday, which means Fear the Wall’s village idiot is back with another Daily Bee. Now, as much as I would like to talk about my local team, LAFC, advancing to the MLS CUP FINALS, I can’t. Our glorious leader, Sean Keyser, has informed me that I have to talk about things related to Dortmund. So without further ado, here’s a look at the first half of matchday 6 in the Champions League group stage.

GROUP A: Napoli, Liverpool, Ajax, Rangers

Group A was all but concluded by matchday 6. Napoli, who were confirmed as group leaders, went to Anfield to play runners-up, Liverpool in what was a dead rubber game. Both sides featured strong line-ups and Liverpool won at home, inflicting Napoli’s first defeat of the season in all competitions. While Napoli are enjoying a historic season, the other end of Group A is also enjoying a historic Champions League campaign. Rangers, who were returning to the Champions League for the first time since 2010/2010, experienced the worst group stage in history. With their defeat against Ajax, the Glasgow Rangers lost once again. They failed to earn a single point had the worst goal difference (-22) in UCL history. It’s a pretty big fall from grace for the Europa League Finalists but I’m sure Dortmund would still find a way to lose to them.

Group B: Porto, Brugge, Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid

Tragedy struck in Group B as the European hipster team of the season. Club Brugge, fell to second place in their group after a draw against Bayer Leverkusen. Fortunately, this result means Leverkusen remain in European competition as the Bundesliga team will be plying their trade in the Europa League. In the other fixture, FC Porto defeated Atletico Madrid and confirmed their spot as group leaders. I’m sure we all expected this table after the draw:

Group C: Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Barcelona, Viktoria Plzen

The group filled with everyone's least favorite teams showcased a matchday filled with nothing too spectacular. Bayern once again topped their group, continuing their record of 0 defeats in the UCL group stage since 2017 as they beat Inter Milan, who finished runners-up. Barcelona defied expectations and defeated Viktoria Plzen and I’m honestly rather sad. I was really hoping Plzen would get at least one point in the group stage this year but hey. at least they did better than Rangers and only had a -19 goal difference!

Group D: Tottenham Hotspur, Eintracht Frankfurt, Sporting Cp, Marseille

Okay, here’s where the fun begins. Anything was possible in Group D coming into today’s matchday and all teams could finish in any position. Even more exciting was the fact that every team occupied every possible position in the group at one point during this matchday. Frankfurt came from behind to beat Sporting CP thanks to goals from Daichi Kamada and Randal Kolo Muani. Dortmund’s loanee, Angsgar Knauff, came in at the 68th minute and produced a wonderful chipped assist for Frankfurt’s winning goal less than a minute later. In the other game. Frankfurt’s victory means at least three german teams are headed to the Champions League Round of 16 and a fourth team, Leverkusen, are moving to the Europa league. RB Leipzig will look to join fellow German clubs tomorrow. In the other match, Tottenham Hotspur scored in the 93rd minute to send themselves top of the group and knock the French club out of European competition. This result also confirms that no English team has failed to advance from the group stage since 2017... when Arsenal was in the Champions League.

As Dortmund will face a non-German group winner in the round of 16. Possible matchups include:

Napoli, winners of Group A

Porto, winners of Group B

Tottenham, winners of Group D,

Chelsea, winners of Group E

PSG or Benfica, both Group H teams are on 11 points and can finish top today.

Real Madrid, from Group F if they get the same or better result than Leipzig tomorrow.

The Links

• My spotlight article this week, unfortunately isn’t just an image of sausage, but rather Paul Johnson’s “Looking Around the League: Bayer Leverkusen Sit Third from Bottom After Terrible Run of Form”. It’s a quick little article from Paul this week that highlights the absurdity of Europa-bound Bayer Leverkusen being near the bottom of the Bundesliga. I highly recommend Paul’s Looking Around the League articles!
• Ansgar Knauff looks to be headed back to Dortmund this summer because Edin Terzic is a fan of the player. I am too Edin, I am too. (Florian Plettenberg)
• Dortmund’s snazzy ‘drip’, as the cool kids say, was back on display as the team traveled to Copenhagen. Take a look at this photo of Jude Bellingham looking like a cold-stone killer out of Peaky Blinders with a cartoon Roman Weidenfeller humping the sky in the background:

• LAFC are headed to the MLS Cup Finals. Oh whoops, there I go again.

The Daily Buzz:

If I make a Daily Buzz question and no one scrolls down far enough to read it, does it really exist?