Madrid, Nov 24 (IANS) FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid clinched top spots in their Champions League groups, consigning Bayern Munich and Manchester City to the second knockout stage berths from Groups D and C, respectively.
Atletico, playing in front of the home crowd at their Vicente Calderon stadium, beat PSV Eindhoven 2-0 here on Wednesday to preserve their perfect record in the 2016-17 Champions group stage, reports Efe.
Kevin Gameiro and Antoine Griezmann scored to bring Atletico to 15 points, six ahead of German champions Bayern Munich, who fell 3-2 to FC Rostov in Wednesday's major upset.
Barcelona's star striker Lionel Messi, who missed Barcelona's last La Liga contest against Malaga, scored both the goals in a 2-0 victory over Celtic in Glasgow that assured the Catalan club of the top spot in Group C with 12 points.
The Argentine's eighth and ninth goals of the 2016-17 Champions League season boosted his scoring total in international club competitions to 100.
England's Manchester City have eight points after managing only a 1-1 draw away to Germany's Borussia Monchengladbach.
In Group B, meanwhile, a pair of draws on Wednesday left everything to be decided in next month's final matches.
While Napoli was held 0-0 at home by Dynamo Kiev, Benfica took a 3-0 lead over Besiktas only to concede three goals in the second half.
Napoli and Benfica each have eight points, one ahead of Besiktas.
Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain will advance from Group A, but the order of the finish will remain in suspense until match-day six is in the books.
The two leaders faced each other Wednesday at the Emirates Stadium in London, where the hosts took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Edinson Cavani.
Olivier Giroud converted a penalty to put Arsenal level just before half-time and the hosts looked to have secured the victory when PSG's Marco Verrati gave up an own goal, but Arsenal's Alex Iwobi returned the favour and the contest ended 2-2.
PSG and Arsenal have 11 points each, though the English club enjoy a slight advantage on goal differential.
Basel and Ludogorets played out a 0-0 draw in Wednesday's other Group A match.
--IANS
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