Ajax 0-3 Real Madrid

The last game of the Champions League Group Stages and Real Madrid did enough by winning all their past games to secure qualification as group leaders. With Jose Mourinho choosing to rest many key players such as Iker Casillas, Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Cristiano Ronaldo and Di Maria, Real Madrid walked onto the pitch with many players from the "second team"

With Antonio Adan in goal, Alvaro Arbeloa, Raphael Varane, Raul Albiol and Fabio Coentrao were in defense. Nuri Sahin, Esteban Granero, and Kaka were in midfield while putting Karim Benzema and Jose Callejon on the flanks. Gonzalo Higuain was leading the attack as the team captain.

Overall, the game was quite slow and at times a little boring but that is pretty much what someone would expect from Real Madrid in a game like this where many are thinking mostly about the coming game against Barcelona.

Jose Callejon was able to open the scoring on the 14th minute. Ajax scored two goals but both of them were ruled offside (more about that later though!). Towards the ending of the first half, Gonzalo Higuain finished off a great pass by Benzema to make it 2-0 for the visitors.

The second half calmed down a little more as Real Madrid played the game mostly in the middle of the pitch and not creating too many chances. During the second half we saw Hamit Altintop come in for Benzema, Pedro Mendes coming on for Arbeloa to make his debut with the first team, and Xabi Alonso came on for Esteban Granero.

Callejon kept proving himself worthy of playing more games as he scored on the 92nd minute to end the game 3-0.

As I mentioned earlier, Ajax scored twice in the first half and both goals were wrongly ruled offside. That didn't seem like too much of a big deal since they were pretty much guaranteed qualification as long as Lyon don't beat Dinamo Zaghreb by more than 5 goals and, at that time, Lyon were losing 1-0.

Everything changed in the second half as Ajax lost 3-0 and Lyon won 7-1 with Gomis scoring the fastest hat-trick in history; 7 minutes! That ended Ajax's run in the Champions League as they will now have to fight in the Europa League. Was it fixed? I guess we'll never know but it is seriously a ridiculous scoreline and, after watching the highlights of the Lyon game, many of the goals could have easily been avoided but Zaghreb seemed too lazy to even continue trying.

Other major shocks of the Champions League is the qualification of APOEL Nicosia as group leaders as they are now officially the first Cypriot team to ever qualify for the second round. Also, both Manchester teams were knocked out. Manchester United lost 2-1 against FC Basel to now book their place in the Europa League along with Manchester City who beat Bayern Munich 2-0 but it wasn't enough as Napoli also beat Villarreal 2-0 to secure qualification.

Best Real Madrid Player: Jose Callejon

Worst Real Madrid Player: ---

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP STAGES:

GROUP A:

Bayern Munich (Q) - 13 Points

Napoli (Q) - 11 Points

Manchester City - 10 Points

Villarreal - 0 points

GROUP B:

Inter Milan (Q) - 10 Points

CSKA Moskva (Q) - 8 Points

Trabzonspor - 7 Points

Lille - 6 Points

GROUP C:

Benfica (Q) - 12 Points

FC Basel (Q) - 11 Points

Manchester United - 9 Points

Otelul Galati - 0 Points

GROUP D:

Real Madrid (Q) - 18 Points

Lyon (Q) - 8 Points

Ajax Amsterdam - 8 Points

Dinamo Zaghreb - 0 Points

GROUP E:

Chelsea (Q) - 11 Points

Bayer Leverkusen (Q) - 10 Points

Valencia - 8 Points

Genk - 3 Points

GROUP F:

Arsenal (Q) - 11 Points

Olympique Marseille (Q) - 10 Points

Olympiacos - 9 Points

Borussia Dortmund - 4 Points

GROUP G:

APOEL Nicosia (Q) - 9 Points

Zenit St. Petersburg (Q) - 9 Points

Porto - 8 Points

Shakhtar Donetsk - 5 Points

GROUP H:

Barcelona (Q) - 16 Points

AC Milan (Q) - 9 Points

Viktoria Plzen - 5 Points

BATE Borisov - 2 Points