adminLONDON. — Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo set a Champions League soccer group phase scoring record on Tuesday night as Bayer Leverkusen and Olympiakos Piraeus reached the last 16 and snow forced Galatasaray’s match with Juventus to be abandoned. Holders Bayern Munich’s record-breaking run of 10 consecutive Champions League wins came to an unceremonious end after Manchester City staged a memorable fightback after conceding two early goals to win 3-2 at the Allianz Arena.
However, Bayern still won Group D with City finishing in second place.
Prolific Ronaldo took his tally to nine for the campaign in Real’s 2-0 win at FC Copenhagen, with the nine-time champions also setting an all-time record in European competitions by netting in 31 successive matches.
Ronaldo, in his first game back since sustaining a muscle strain on November 23, scored with a simple close-range finish three minutes after the break, Real’s second after Luka Modric’s delightful opener.
Bayern manager Pep Guardiola suffered only his second loss in 25 matches since taking over from Jupp Heynckes.
“When you go 2-0 ahead, you have to play better than that,” Bayern captain Philipp Lahm told Sky Sports Deutschland. “But we can live with the defeat, we are still group winners.”
A heavy loss looked on the cards for City when slack defending allowed Thomas Mueller and Mario Goetze to fire the German side 2-0 ahead after 12 minutes.
David Silva started the comeback with a simple finish to reduce the deficit by the break and James Milner won a penalty, converted by Aleksandar Kolarov, and side-footed the winner in a three-minute second-half spell.
“We wanted revenge for the first game (Bayern won 3-1) and to show it was not that different between Bayern and our team,” said City manager Manuel Pellegrini. — Soccernet.
Online Reporter