Villareal’s win over Atalanta on Thursday sealed the top 16 spots of the Champions League, concluding the group stages of the competition. The Spanish club won with a score of 3-2.
While some teams were expected to make it to the top 16, other teams’ performance came as a surprise, including Catalan club Barcelona.
Barcelona’s 17-year streak of advancing to the Champions League knockout rounds each season ended Wednesday with an exit from the group stage that failed to finish on time because of snow in Italy.
Here are the top 16 teams of the Champions League:
The group winners include Manchester City, Juventus, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester United, Ajax, Bayern Munich, Lille.
On the other hand, the group runners-ups are Chelsea, Inter Milan, Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, Sporting CP, RB Salzburg and Villarreal.
Bayern’s perfect six straight wins started with a 3-0 win at Camp Nou in September, and a repeat result at home let Benfica rise above Barcelona — and into the round-of-16 draw on Monday — by beating Dynamo Kyiv 2-0.
Only 15 of the 16-team lineup in the knockout stage were known on Wednesday night.
The Atalanta-Villarreal game to decide who will finish runner-up in Group F was postponed by heavy snow in the northern Italian city of Bergamo. The group was already won by Manchester United before it drew 1-1 Wednesday with last-place Young Boys at Old Trafford.
Lille, the team lowest-ranked by UEFA in the group stage, seized top spot by beating Wolfsburg 3-1 in Germany. Canada forward Jonathan David scored the second goal for Lille. Salzburg beat Sevilla 1-0 to advance to the round of 16 as runner-up. The consolation for third-place Sevilla is a switch across to the second-tier Europa League where it is the record six-time title-holder.
Defending champion Chelsea and Juventus had already sealed their round-of-16 places from Group H but the first place in the group was in play Wednesday.