Before Barcelona even kicks the ball at Camp Nou on Wednesday, it knows that its Champions League fate is already sealed.
Inter Milan’s 4–0 win over Viktoria Plzen in one of the day’s early matches clinched the Italian side’s place in the last 16 and ensured that Barcelona will be dumped in to the Europa League’s knockout phase as a third-place group finisher behind Bayern and Inter. With Inter six points clear of Barcelona, Xavi’s side can do no better than match the Nerazzurri on points, and by virtue of Inter’s win and draw against Barcelona in group play, it holds the head-to-head tiebreaker.
That leaves Barça in third, and with Viktoria Plzen on no points and Barcelona on four, the group is effectively settled. If Barcelona takes points off Bayern, then all that would be left to sort would be which of Bayern or Inter goes through as a group winner.
Barcelona joins Juventus as traditional powers not to make it out of the group stage, though Barça’s ouster comes from a much more difficult group than what Juventus faced. The Bianconeri were bested by PSG and Benfica and dropped a result to Maccabi Haifa en route to its first failure to get out of the group since 2013-14.
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