Soccer
Champions League wrap-up: Gunners perfect, Top 8 confirmed, and some big names eliminated
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The final day of the Champions League's massive league phase took place on Wednesday as several teams made a final push for positioning.
With all 18 matches kicking off simultaneously, it was a frenzied sprint to the finish, with some clubs coming up big while others fell agonizingly short.
Here are some of the bigger talking points from Wednesday's Champions League action.
Top 8 confirmed
The league phase is officially in the books and we now know which teams will advance directly to the Round of 16 by finishing in the top eight spots of the table.
They are, in order: Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Tottenham, Barcelona, Chelsea, Sporting CP, and Manchester City.
Those are the clubs that can sit back and watch the next 16 teams battle it out in an extra round of play-off matches to earn the right to face them.
Interestingly, only three of the "Big 5" European leagues are represented among the automatic qualifiers, with the Premier League topping the list with five clubs. La Liga and the Bundesliga each have one representative in the Top 8, with Portugal's Sporting CP round out the list.
That means no clubs from Italy or France are assured passage into the last-16, although the likes of Inter, Juventus and PSG will be favoured in their play-off match-ups.
Gunners perfect, but problems persist
Arsenal cruised through the league phase as the only team to win all eight matches, and they did so while scoring the most goals and allowing the fewest.
It's a testamant to the kind of season the Gunners have had thus far, with Mikel Arteta's defensive structure not taking away from the team's ability to fill the net at the attacking end.
However, recent matches in the Premier League have brought Arteta's men down to Earth a bit, and while they also lead in their domestic league, some of the shine has been taken off a stellar campaign as Arsenal have shown frailty at the back and a rising inability to score goals.
On Wednesday, Arsenal scored three times and probably should have had double that amount given the way the game unfolded, but Kairat — who finished dead last among the 36 teams — were able to put two goals past goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga despite rarely having possession of the ball.
The increasing ease with which opponents are getting to Arsenal's net needs to be cleaned up if the Gunners look to continue this magical run through the knockout stages of the competiton.
Giants miss out
While the likes of Real Madrid, Juventus, PSG and Inter will be disappointed to not finish in the top eight to avoid the knockout phase play-offs, at least their Champions League hopes are still alive.
The same cannot be said for a number of traditional powers from across Europe, as Olympique Marseille, PSV, Napoli, Ajax and Villarreal all saw their Champions League journeys end on Wednesday.
You'd expect most, if not all, of those sides to be able to finish in the top 24, but instead Bodo/Glimt and Qarabag FK will play on in their stead.
It's a truly disappointing end for the bigger names who did not make it, but especially so for Marseille and PSV as they started the day in a play-off position but could not earn the required victories to move on.
How to watch the Champions League on DAZN
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