Holders Bayern Munich and English side Manchester City became the first teams to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League on Tuesday.
Bayern made heavy weather of beating Viktoria Pilsen 1-0 while group rivals City reached the knockout stages for the first time, after flopping in the group stage the last two seasons, with a 5-2 thumping of CSKA Moscow in Manchester.
Bayern coach Pep Guardiola, whose side equalled the Champions League record of nine successive wins set by Barcelona back in the 2002/03 season, was satisfied despite the unconvincing display exemplified by yet another poor first-half performance.
“We have taken all the points we could in the four games, which shows how strong we are,” said Guardiola.
City got the better of CSKA with a Sergio Aguero double and a hat-trick from Alvaro Negredo, with manager Manuel Pellegrini saying: “It is the first step, but it’s an important one as the team has not qualified before. We have done that now.”
Source: Supersport
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