Griezmann and Atlético in the eighth
At the start of this last day of Group B, three teams could still believe in qualifying: FC Porto, Atlético de Madrid and AC Milan. The Portuguese club and the Spanish club also faced each other for a final. And this crucial match had started very badly for the men of Diego Simeone with the exit on injury of Luis Suarez after ten minutes. As often this season, Atlético conceded a lot of shots but was able to count, this time, on a very good Jan Oblak, always vigilant in front of his line.
But after rounding the back for the entire first period, the Colchoneros came back with better intentions and started to pose some problems for the Porto defense. On a corner hit by Thomas Lemar (towards Geoffrey Kondogbia), it was Antoine Griezmann who followed perfectly to push the ball into the net (56th).
This goal increased the intensity of an already very lively match, especially after the exclusions of Yannick Carrasco (67th), Madrid side, and Wendell (who was not necessarily deserved, 70th) for FC Porto. With more space, Ángel Correa and Rodrigo De Paul took the opportunity to score two goals in added time (90th + 2 and 90th + 4). Sergio Oliveira reduced the gap on the penalty spot (90th + 7). Atlético de Madrid therefore finished second in their group and will see the knockout stages of the Champions League. Porto is transferred to the Europa League.
Mike Maignan (in white) and his teammates are eliminated from all European competition. (A. Lingria / Reuters)
AC Milan won’t even go to the Europa League
To hope to qualify, AC Milan had to beat Liverpool and hope that Porto did not win against Atlético. For a few minutes, after the opening scoring of Fikayo Tomori (29th), the Milanese believed in the feat but ultimately they could not hold the advantage against an eleven of the Reds yet reshaped. On a bad dismissal from Mike Maignan, Mohamed Salah equalized (1-1, 35th).
Dominated, Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s teammates conceded a second goal. On an error by Tomori, Maignan could not do better than repel Sadio Mané’s strike on Divock Origi who quietly finished with a header (2-1, 55 ‘). With this defeat, AC Milan does not even grab 3rd place synonymous with the Europa League and therefore finishes last in its group.