On a bad night for British sides in the Champions League Chelsea, Celtic and Manchester United all slumped to defeat.
Chelsea suffer in Turin, Celtic lose in Lisbon, Yilmaz sinks United
On a bad night for British sides in the Champions League Chelsea, Celtic and Manchester United all slumped to defeat.
Chelsea's Champions League hopes are hanging by a thread after going down 3-0 to
Juventus in Turin.
Juventus made the breakthrough seven minutes before half-time when Andrea Pirlo's shot deflected off Fabio Quagliarella to wrongfoot Petr Cech in the Chelsea goal and although the keeper got a hand on the ball he could not stop it crossing the line.
Juventus doubled their lead just past the hour mark when Kwadwo Asamoah cut the ball back for Arturo Vidal and his shot took a deflection off Ramires before flying through Cech's legs.
The Italian champions piled the misery on Chelsea with a third goal in stoppage time as Sebastian Giovinco beat Cech to a through ball to slide the ball under the keeper to leave the Blues on a knife edge in their final game against Nordsdjaelland.
The holders need to beat Nordsdjaelland at Stamford Bridge and hope Shakhtar Donetsk can do them a favour against Juventus otherwise they will become the first defending champions to go out at the group stages.
Shakhtar Donetsk booked their place in the knockout stages with a controversial 5-2 win over
Nordsdjaelland in Denmark.
Morten Nordstrand gave the Danes the lead after 24 minutes, but the game erupted into controversy two minutes later when Adriano levelled matters in extraordinary circumstances.
Willian played a drop ball back Nordsdjaelland after an injury with the home side expecting the ball to run through to their goalkeeper only for Adriano to take the ball and round the shot-stopper to score.
The goal provoked angry reactions from Nordsjaelland players with the Danes expecting Shakhtar to allow them to score from the resulting kick-off, but the Ukrainians refused.
Nordsjaelland did restore their lead on the half hour mark when Kasper Lorentzen found the net, but Willian hit back for Shakhtar on the stroke of half-time.
Shaktar took control of the game early in the second with two goals in three minutes from Willian (50) and Adriano (53) to put the game beyond Nordsjaelland.
Public enemy No.1 Adriano completed his hat-trick nine minutes from time to pile the misery on the hosts.
Celtic's fate will go down to the final game after they went down to a 2-1 defeat to
Benfica at the Estadio da Luz.
Knowing a score draw would be enough to send them through Celtic got off to the worst possible start when they failed to clear a ball into their box and the ball dropped to Ola John who drilled his shot past Fraser Forster.
The Scottish champions drew level on 32 minutes when Charlie Mulgrew's corner found Georgios Samaras unmarked at the far post and the Greek striker headed home from close range.
After a prolonged period of pressure Benfica restored their lead 19 minutes from time when Luisao headed the ball into the path of Ezequiel Garay to volley home past Forster.
The defeat means Benfica will head into the final round of matches needing to just equal Celtic's result in their final game to deprive the Bhoys of a place in the last 16.
Barcelona cruised into the last 16 with a 3-0 win over
Spartak Moscow in a freezing Russia.
Lionel Messi scored twice to bring his tally to 80 goals during this calendar year with Dani Alves netting the other for the
