Ucl: Bassey Crashes Out With Ajax As Sanusi, Onyedika Progress

Bassey was on for 90 minutes against the Reds, but his presence at the back could not help Ajax’s leaky defence.

Nigerian defender, Calvin Bassey, and his Ajax teammates are officially out of this season’s UEFA Champions League following Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat in the hands of Liverpool.

Bassey was on for 90 minutes against the Reds, but his presence at the back could not help Ajax’s leaky defence that has now conceded 15 goals in five Champions League games this season.

In Wednesday’s tie in Amsterdam, Mohamed Sarah scored his sixth goal in his last four Champions League games with a 42nd-minute opener, before Darwin Nunez and Harvey Elliott added quick-fire second-half finishes to seal the victory.

With just three points from five games, Ajax will have to do with life in the Europa League.

For Bassey, who has no prior Champions League experience before now, the Europa League may be a more familiar terrain having gone all the way to the final last season with his former club, Rangers.

While Bassey has already kissed the Champions League bye, his Super Eagles teammates, Zaidu Sanusi and Raphael Onyedika are still very much in contention with FC Porto and Club Brugge, respectively.

Interestingly, both Sanusi and Onyedika were at opposing ends on Wednesday night at the Jan Breydel Stadion where Porto surprisingly breezed to a 4-0 win over the Belgian giants.

Sanusi featured for 77 minutes while Onyedika, who got a 55th yellow card was in action for 80 minutes before making way for Eder Balanta.

Despite the heavy defeat, Club Brugge will go into the last match day as table toppers in Group B with 10 points, while Porto is in a close second with nine points.

Both teams are through to the knockout phase regardless of what happens in their last games.

Porto will be home to Atletico Madrid for their last group fixture while Brugge are away to Bayer Leverkusen.

Both games are fixed for November 1.

Barca out

Elsewhere , Bayern Munich registered a 3-0 victory over Barcelona at Nou Camp

The victory by the Bavarian compounded the miserable day for Barcelona as they were eliminated from the Champions League at the group stage for a second successive season.

Inter’s 4-0 win against Viktoria Plzen earlier on Wednesday had already sealed Barca’s fate even before the kickoff against Bayern.

First-half goals from Sadio Mane and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting were followed by a Benjamin Pavard strike with the last kick of the game.

Bayern were already through from Group C but confirmed themselves as group winners ahead of Inter with this win, with Barca dropping into the Europa League

With one matchday remaining in the group stage, 12 teams have secured qualification to the Round of 16 while there are four more places still up for grabs.

While Chelsea, Liverpool, Inter, PSG, Benfica, Porto, and Borussia Dortmund sealed their qualification after their matchday 5 games, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Napoli, Bayern Munich and Club Brugge sealed their berths after matchday 4.