UEFA Champions League 2011: United Eliminated By Basel, Napoli Through Over City

In a UEFA Champions League group in which every team plays each other home and away, FC Basel came away with more points than Manchester United. They were able to secure a 2-1 win over Otelul Galati and a 3-3 draw against Manchester United at Old Trafford without their best player, Xherdan Shaqiri. They deserve to move on to the knockout stages and they did not get lucky.

While Basel cannot boast the depth that United has, their recent results and their first XI stack up just fine. The Swiss Super League is not nearly as high of a standard as the English Premier League, but they’re six points clear at the top of that league. They won it last season. And now, on the final matchday of the UEFA Champions League group stages, they’ve defeated Manchester United.

It is traditional, at this stage of the Champions League season, to have a good moan: it’s always the same clubs, we whine; I like knockout matches, we blub. This season’s edition, for connected reasons, has been different on both fronts.

Firstly, and obviously, it’s not all the same clubs. Recent winners Porto and Manchester United are out. The Bundesliga champions are out; the Ligue 1 champions are out; the Premier League leaders are out. Though perhaps indicative of La Liga’s problems rather than Champions League progress, only two Spanish clubs remain.

It wasn’t. Within minutes of kickoff, Kaka had threaded a lovely through pass to Jose Callejon, who made no mistake in dispatching his shot past Kenneth Vermeer to make it 1-0. Despite going down, Ajax played well in the first half and carved out a number of opportunities including two goals which were bizarrely disallowed for offside. Gonzalo Higuain made it 2-0 shortly before halftime, but the hosts by no means deserved to be trailing.

It was a similar story in the second half, with Ajax playing well and simply unable to score. Meanwhile, Lyon were racking up a silly-looking win over Dinamo Zagreb, eventually dispatching their opponents 7-1 to more than make up the goal difference required to knock Ajax out. The Eredivisie side, apparently secure in their knowledge that everything was going to be fine, did little of note in the latter stages of the game, and it was all too easy for Callejon to get a second in stoppage time, consigning Ajax to the Europa League and capping off a crazy Champions League day.

The first half of the match was frustrating, as it appeared that the Yellow Submarine were more intent on emulating a big yellow bus rather than their amphibious namesake. The home side looked determined to fetch at least a point from their final match, defending in numbers, although Napoli weren’t exactly giving them a lot to deal with. The visitors looked like deer caught in the headlights, overwhelmed at the idea that they absolutely needed a win to go through to the next round, especially after City went up in the first half.

But whatever manager Walter Mazzarri said to them at halftime must have worked, because Napoli took to the pitch in the second half looking revitalized. Unfortunately for the partenopei, their manager wasn’t long for the world, or at least, the match, with Mazzarri being sent off less than ten minutes after the restart. That only seemed to fire up the visitors, however, with Inler scoring soon after. Despite the fact that the Swiss had been one of the worst players on the pitch, he managed an incredible strike from just outside the area, sending it over Diego Lopez and into the back of the net.

It certainly didn’t matter to Bayern, who were happy to sit around doing approximately nothing while City’s players desperately tried to summon some motivation from somewhere, hoping for a miracle from Villarreal. They didn’t get it. Napoli won, and suddenly the result (it finished 2-0 to City) was completely meaningless.

Not only did they make it up, they did it with a couple of goals to spare. While Ajax fell 3-0 to Madrid, Lyon put up an incredible 7-1 thrashing on Dinamo to go through with eight points and a goal differential two goals better than Ajax. Bafetimbi Gomis was the man of the match, scoring four goals for OL.

No one knows what Remi Garde said to his team at halftime, but it clearly worked. They scored three times in the first seven minutes, with Maxime Gonalons scoring in the 47th minute before Gomis completed his hat trick with two more goals. At that point, they were up by three goals while Ajax trailed by two. They still needed things to go their way by two more goals, either allowed by Ajax or scored by them.

The Red Devils came out guns blazing in the second half, with Rooney missing another golden opportunity in the 49th minute. Basel almost gave up the equalizer in disastrous fashion in the 60th minute, when Markus Steinhöfer powered a clearance off his own crossbar. Basel regularly had 10 of their 11 players in the penalty area in the second half, occasionally breaking out to counter-attack.

The referee gave three minutes of stoppage time in which United pushed everyone forward, but they were unable to find the equalizer that they needed to qualify for the knockout stages. The final whistle blew with the scoreboard reading 2-1 to Basel, and the Red Devils will be going to the Europa League. Basel have become the first team from Switzerland to qualify for the UEFA Champions League knockout stages and will join Benfica in qualifying from Group C.

At halftime, the partenopei are certain to learn that Manchester City have taken the lead against the Bayern Munich babies, meaning that, should the scores stay as they are through 45 minutes, City will go through and Napoli will drop to the Europa League. Will Walter Mazzarri’s pep talk be enough to light a fire -- or perhaps calm the nerves -- of the Napoli players? Will the Yellow Submarine crack, letting through a goal? We shall see.

FC Basel lead Manchester United by a score of 1-0 at halftime, meaning that the Red Devils are on the verge of crashing out of the UEFA Champions League. If this result holds, they’ll be heading down to the Europa League with a third place finish in the group. The goal was hardly against the run of play and it would be unfair to say it was anything but deserved. United’s defending has been shaky and they’ve been slow going forward.

Just before the end of the half, United defender Nemanja Vidic was forced off with an injury. It was some sort of leg injury, and it was bad enough that he was not able to leave the pitch under his own power. He was replaced by Johnny Evans.

Check out Manchester United blog The Busby Babe for more on the Red Devils. We’ll have coverage of all of the UEFA Champions League matches at SB Nation Soccer.

Napoli have all to play for in this match, and their lineup reflects that -- the absolute best starters for the partenopei prepare to take the field shortly in their final Champions League Group A match. A win, and they’re through to the knockout round. A loss or draw for Manchester City, and Napoli are through as well....but Bayern Munich are fielding the kids at the Etihad, so in reality, this is a must-win match for Napoli.

Villarreal have nothing but pride to play for. The vesuviani faithful are hoping that’s not enough.

Manchester City need a win to have any hope of advancing from UEFA Champions League Group A and therefore field a strong lineup. Bayern Munich do not. The Bundesliga leaders are already through as group winners and therefore can afford to faff around a little bit, with coach Jupp Heynckes apparently trying to answer that age-old question ‘can I field a starting eleven that my bench could beat?’ Happily for City, it looks like Heynckes might have managed it.

In 1968, in advance of a European Cup first round tie against Turkish Champions Fenerbahce, then Manchester City manager Big Malcolm Allison boasted that his club were going to ‘terrify Europe’ (they lost). In November of this year, current Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini, claimed that his side lacked the experience necessary to threaten Europe’s top clubs.

How things have changed.