The2021/22 Champions League Group Stage Report (Part 2)

Arthur Viana, 9 December, 2021

Sorry for being a little late, but the Villarreal x Atalanta game was postponed, and I had to wait until it was over to keep going. Anyways, here’s my second part of the 2021/22 Champions League Group Stage Report, where I’ll take a look at the groups E to H and give some opinions. Don’t forget to go check out part 1 here in my profile if you haven’t already. Let’s go!

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Group E

Bayern again coming strong in the Champions League, obviously a big contender for the title this season. With the best attack of the group stage, scoring 22 goals in 6 games, they surely deserved 1st place. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, though. FC Barcelona. So sad. It’s even hard to talk about them without feeling genuine sadness and pity. They got knocked out and are going to play the Europa League for the first time in 17 years. Honestly, if I’m going to talk about Barcelona, I’m going to need more time, so maybe in the future I’ll share my thoughts about them. Benfica deserved the 2nd place finish, but I don’t believe they’ll go very far, and Dynamo in last was completely expected.

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Group F

Manchester United was the odd one here, top of the group that had the team who beat them in the Europa League Final last season, and Atalanta, who are always dangerous. Cristiano Ronaldo was amazing and I honestly don’t know what would have happened if it wasn’t for him. Villarreal and Atalanta fought until the very last game and after a great match, Villarreal secured de 2nd place finish, sending the Italians to the Europa League. Fair play to them. Young Boys from Switzerland had a good start, winning 2-1 against Man United, but they’ve finished last, as we all thought they would.

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Group G

What a fun little group, right? No real title contenders, but teams that can definitely impress. To be honest, I thought Sevilla would eat this group for breakfast, but they got knocked out and are joining Barcelona in the Europa League. Sevilla and Europa League is a special connection, indeed. Lille finished top of the group, which was great, and RB Salzburg impressed everyone by finishing only one point behind Lille. I expected a little more from Wolfsburg, but I guess last place is sort of realistic.

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Group H

Not much to say about it, no big surprises, everything just happened exactly how we all predicted. Well, Chelsea did finish behind Juventus, which I suppose you can say it was unexpected but they were still the two teams to go through to the knockout stages. Zenit in 3rd and Malm? in 4th were very predictable. Good luck to Zenit in the Europa League, they have a very interesting squad, in my opinion.