UEFA Champions League, Matchday 6: Manchester City send Roma out; Barcelona beat PSG

The UEFA Champions League group stage concludes this week, and they’re still lots to be settled on the final matchday.

Each day features a couple of marquee matches with something on the line. Juventus haven’t qualified yet, and need to get a result at home against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday. Liverpool are also in trouble, and they’ll be out with anything other than a win at home against Basel. Monaco vs. Zenit is also big, with only one of the two able to qualify from their group.

The Champions League knockout stage has been set, and now the qualified teams will await Monday’s draw, when they’ll discover their fate. A number of the groups went down to the wire, with about half the spots not being locked down until Tuesday and Wednesday’s games.

Juventus narrowly held onto their spot with a draw on Tuesday, while Basel did enough at Anfield to knock out Liverpool and clinch Group B’s second slot. Monaco beat Zenit to clinch their place on the final day, while Group D’s two knockout stage representatives were determined before the last day.

As the half wore on, the chances began to dry up and the pace of the game began to drop. However, with City being the side in need of a goal, Roma were more than happy to pack men behind the ball and look to strike on the break. They did so once more before halftime, though Gervinho’s fired tamely at Hart’s goal after a raking Nainggolan pass found him in space behind Gaël Clichy. City, meanwhile, looked impotent.

Manuel Pellegrini’s halftime team talk seemed to finally imbue his side with a sense of urgency, though despite moving the ball a little quicker, they failed to give De Sanctis an early test. Indeed, the second period’s first stop was at the other end of the field, when Hart dived to push Miralem Pjanić‘s venomous drive away from danger.

Despite plenty of early possession and pressure from Barcelona, it was PSG who jumped out front in the 15th minute. Lucas’ pass to Blaise Matiudi allowed the midfielder to one touch the ball back to Zlatan Ibrahimović who was inexplicably allowed a massive amount of space inside the area. The former Barca striker buried his shot through traffic and past Marc-Andre ter Stegen, putting the Parisians up 1-0.

Lionel Messi wasn’t about to let Zlatan’s goal go unanswered though and it took just 4 minutes for the response to come.

“We need a goal. I should probably shoot, huh?”

Yes, Samir Nasri. You should have shot, and thank heavens you did because you didn’t just shoot, you lit Roma on fire.

Tune in for the second half, which will feature Marco Verratti hitting a 40-yard free kick and Luis Suarez answering with a bike from the center circle.

Gerard Pique is King Arthur and Shakira is Guinevere.

Next up, Pique will get the same outfit, but in denim.

The Champions League hasn’t proven much more difficult than the Premier League for Chelsea, who have already wrapped up first place in their group. However, Sporting Club aren’t guaranteed of anything yet, and might need to get a result against the Blues (2:45 p.m. ET, FOX Sports regional) to qualify for the knockout stage.

Sporting currently sit on seven points, two ahead of Schalke. Sporting have the aggregate lead on Schalke in head-to-head, so if Schalke defeat Maribor while Sporting grab a draw at Stamford Bridge, it would be the Portuguese side who went through to the next round.

Paris Saint-Germain pulled off an impressive home win in the first half of the Champions League group stage, putting themselves in excellent position on the final matchday. To win their group and avoid a monster draw in the round of 16, they only need a draw away to FC Barcelona on Wednesday (2:45 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 2/ESPN Deportes).

At the time of that first match, Barcelona hadn’t quite figured out how to fit in their new personnel, while Luis Suarez was unavailable. Their set piece defending was particularly horrible, as David Luiz turned in a dominant performance for PSG. Barca’s defense hasn’t turned into a juggernaut overnight, but they’re currently looking a bit less embarrassing than they did on that day.

Since becoming one of the world’s richest clubs and establishing themselves as a regular fixture in the Champions League, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for Manchester City. They’ve experienced some embarrassing exits, and they could go out in the group stage again if they don’t grab a good result away to AS Roma (2:45 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1).

While City sit bottom of the group right now, they can go through with any draw with a 2-2 or higher score, assuming CSKA Moscow can’t get a result against Bayern Munich. A 0-0 or 1-1 draw would see Roma advance to the round of 16, again, assuming CSKA can’t beat or draw Bayern. If the Russians do pull an upset, things get immensely more complicated.

Schalke 04 have had a characteristically unpredictable start to the season, embodied perfectly by their last three games. In the first, they were smashed 5-0 after a dismal performance against Chelsea in the Champions League. In the two domestic games they’ve played since, they’ve won both and scored a combined total of eight goals on their way to collecting maximum points.

However, if they want to make it through into the Champions League’s knockout stages, Roberto Di Matteo’s side will have to beat a stubborn Maribor in Slovenia on Wednesday, while also hoping Sporting Lisbon are beaten by group leaders Chelsea. It’s a far from impossible task for the German outfit, but their hopes of progressing are still only partly in their own hands.

Group F was one of the easier-to-predict groups in the Champions League this year. With Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain as the first two teams placed in the group, they were always going to be the top finishers, even if Ajax gave it a valiant, if doomed, effort.

Now as we enter the final match day, those two titans of the group face off to see who will finish with the top seed in the group, thus getting a (theoretically) easier matchup in the round of 16. Paris Saint-Germain currently hold a one-point edge with 13 points to Barcelona’s 12, thanks in no small part to their 3-2 win over Barca in Paris.

CSKA Moscow travel to face Group E winners Bayern Munich needing a win over the Germans combined with some help from the other group game if they hope to advance.

The last time Bayern lost at home to a Russian side was in the 1995/86 UEFA Cup when Lokomotiv Moscow won 1-0. In case you were wondering, the Germans won the second leg 5-0 in Russia en route to winning the trophy that season.

Group E was one of the more interesting groups in the Champions League this year, and it’s actually played out not far from how people expected it would. Bayern Munich ran away with first place, with four straight wins to open the group stage before falling to Manchester City in the last round.

That win for City set up a huge match today, drawing them even with CSKA Moscow and AS Roma on points, setting them up for a massively important showdown with the Italian side today. If Roma win, they’re in. If City win, they’re probably in. A scoring draw favors Manchester, but a goalless draw would see Roma through as long as CSKA don’t get a result in Munich.

Making fun of a historic club’s anthem and bragging about Liverpool being the third English club they’ve knocked out of European competition in recent years, after knocking Chelsea out of the Champions League and Tottenham out of the Europa League in 2013? Hats off to you, Basel. That is some top-shelf banter.

Of course, anyone who knows much about English football knows that Chelsea and Tottenham would leave Liverpool lying on the pitch while pointing and laughing, but that’s neither here nor there.

AS Monaco moved on to the knockout rounds with a 2-0 win at home over Zenit St. Petersburg. After a lackluster first half, Monaco’s offense awoke as Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco and Fabinho scored to give the Ligue 1 side the victory.

Considering that Monaco had scored just two goals in the group stages while conceding just one, offensive fireworks were not something to expect from the match. Add in the fact that the home side just needed a draw to advance and all signs pointed to a drab affair unless Zenit could pressure Monaco and unlock their defense.

Basel hung on to draw 1-1 against Liverpool at Anfield on Tuesday, as the Swiss champions edged into the Champions League knockout phase ahead of their Merseyside hosts.

Basel took the lead midway through the first half, only to be pegged back by a 10-man Liverpool with just minutes left on the clock. Despite the Reds’ best efforts, they couldn’t find an all-important winner, and will play the rest of their continental football this season in the Europa League.

Gerrard is old. There are questions about whether he should still start for Liverpool. It’s all over for him.

Liverpool are not dead. Gerrard is not dead. There’s still life, thanks to one amazing strike.

Liverpool were 1-0 down to Basel and they needed a win to advance to the knockout stages of the Champions League, so things weren’t going well. But they could have been going worse and Lazar Markovic ensured they would.

There isn’t a ton of contact, but it does appear as if there is some contact and it appears intentional. With that, the referee has a pretty good case for sending him off.

Then Fabian Frei scored to put Basel 1-0 up. It was pretty. It was tidy. It may have killed Liverpool.

Now the Reds have to score twice to get out of the group. Against Basel, that’s going to be tough. But at least if they go out, it will be because of a nice goal so they can take solace in that. Or they can be angry and watch Basel fans celebrate while watching the goal on a loop. Their choice.

That was perfect. That was so perfect.

WHOA THAT WAS PERFECT.

As for Basel, coach Paulo Sousa has continued his innovating, seemingly once again opting for three central defenders. Let’s hope for the Swiss side’s sake that their experiment with the system goes rather better than Brendan Rodgers’ own at Anfield last season.

Basel starting lineup (3-4-3): Tomáš Vaclík; Marek Suchý, Granit Xhaka, Fabian Schär; Behrang Safari, Mohamed Elneny, Luca Zuffi, Fabian Frei; Shkelzen Gashi, Marco Streller, Derlis González

Arsenal have already progressed into the Champions League knockout phase, but will be looking to overhaul Borussia Dortmund and finish top of Group D with a win away at Galatasaray on Tuesday. However, in order to do so, the Gunners will be having to hope Anderlecht pull off a surprise result against the Germans, who sit two points clear at the top heading into the group phase’s final matchday.

Galatasaray, meanwhile, only have pride left to fight for against Arsenal. It has been an utterly miserable European campaign for the Turkish side, who have recently sacked manager Cesare Prandelli and replaced him with former assistant manager of the national team, Hamza Hamzaoğlu. Heading into the final round of games, they are sat bottom of the group on a single point. It is mathematically impossible for them to move up into third place.

Atlético Madrid have already clinched their place in the Champions League knockout rounds, but Juventus still have a lot to play for. They need a result on Tuesday (2:45 p.m. ET, ESPN3/Deportes) to grab a Round of 16 spot.

Fortunately for American viewers, this is one of the games that was sublicensed to ESPN. This means that there are different options for watching this game online. For most, the easiest will be the Watch ESPN app, where there will be two different streams. There’s a feed in English on ESPN3, which does not require a TV subscription. If you’re an ESPN Deportes TV subscriber, you can also watch the game in Spanish.