Showdown in CL Group E – Giroud shoots Milan into the round of 16 – Zakaria goal on debut – Sport

• In CL Group E, Milan wins the direct duel against Salzburg 4-0 and advances to the round of 16.
• The Austrians with the Swiss Noah Okafor and Philipp Köhn have to go to the Europa League.
• Denis Zakaria makes his debut at Chelsea – and scores immediately in the 2-1 home win over Dinamo Zagreb.
• Everything you need to know about groups F, G and H can be found here.

With great ambitions, the two Swiss in the service of RB Salzburg – goalie Philipp Köhn and attacker Noah Okafor – traveled with their team to the showdown in Milan. With an away win at AC Milan, they wanted to move into the round of 16 in the “premier class” for the second time in a row.

But Milan turned out to be one size too big on Wednesday evening – at least. The “Rossoneri” beat Salzburg 4-0 and secured second place behind Chelsea. Okafor, Köhn and Co. have to console themselves with the Europa League.

Great game by Giroud

The big figure at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza was a Frenchman: striker Olivier Giroud killed the visitors almost single-handedly. In the 14th minute, the 2018 world champion nodded a free-standing corner kick to make it 1-0. After the break, he headed Milan’s second goal by Rade Krunic in an exemplary manner (46′) before making it 3-0 himself (57′). Giroud also initiated the last goal of the game in injury time with a nice, opening pass. And: Another goal was disallowed for offside in the 26th minute.

Zakaria scores in his Chelsea debut

Since Denis Zakaria joined Chelsea on loan from Juventus in early September, the Swiss national player has not played a single minute for the Londoners. That changed on Wednesday evening. In the last CL group game against Dinamo Zagreb – Chelsea could no longer be knocked out of first place – Zakaria made his debut for the “Blues”.

And the 25-year-old didn’t need any warm-up time to draw attention to himself. In the 30th minute, Zakaria scored from 13 meters to make it 2-1 for Chelsea and was immediately the match winner for his team. The Swiss had fought the last serious fight for Juventus more than 2 months ago.

For Zagreb, where Josip Drmic came on as a substitute in the 83rd minute, this defeat marks the end of this season’s European adventure.

Overview of the teams qualified for the knockout stage: