UEFA Champions League: Tops & Flops

The Group Stage of the 2011/12 UEFA Champions League ended last night with numerous surprises after all the 32 participating sides have finally played their six group league matches. 16 team move into the pre-quarterfinals, eight into the UEFA Europa League while the rest are eliminated.

We look back at the tops and flops...

Tops

The biggest positive surprise is the qualification of Cypriot minnows APOEL Nicosia for the pre-quarterfinals. APEOL not only qualified from their Group G, but also topped the group ahead more famed sides Zenit St. Petersburg, FC Porto and Shakhtar Donetsk.

Spanish giants Real Madrid were the only side to finish with an all win record, the first team to do so in six seasons.

Flops

The biggest upset was the elimination of English giants Manchester United from Group C with Benfica Lisboa topping the group and Swiss champions FC Basel finishing second due to a final day 2-1 win against United last night. For United it meant their first exit at this stage in years with the club having played in three of the last four UCL finals.

Also out are United's city rivals Manchester City, who didn't survive the group of death. Bayern Munich and SSC Napoli went through from Group A at the expense of City with another negative being Spanish side FC Villarreal. The 'Yellow Submarines' lost all their six group matches being no factor at all.

Two more sides in Romanians Otelul Galati and Dynamo Zagreb from Croatia also ended the group stage with six losses. Especially for Zagreb the last couple of matches were tough. First a 2-6 defeat to Real Madrid and then a 1-7 loss at home to Olympique Lyonnais.