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On Wednesday evening, the UEFA Champions League group stage matches came to an end. The last tickets to the quarterfinals were secured by "Man Utd" after convincingly defeating their main rival "Benfica", "Arsenal" and "Porto" drawing after a goal apiece in their match, and surprise winners "Milan" overcoming French club "Lille" away. Meanwhile, the remaining three teams, Moscow's "CSKA", "Benfica", "AEK", and already securing this position earlier, "Steaua", will continue their European battles in the UEFA Europa League.
One of the most interesting battles took place in Group G, where three teams still had hopes of progressing further. "Porto" and "Arsenal" settled for a draw, while "CSKA", featuring Lithuanian player Deividas Šemberas throughout the match, needed an away victory against the until then point-less "Hamburger". Although the Germans started the game more actively at home, they failed to break through the "army men's" defense. In the middle of the first half, Miloš Krasić was fouled in the penalty area by Thimothee Atouba, and 11 meters penalty was scored by Ivica Olić, putting the visitors ahead.
However, the Moscow team's advantage lasted only a few minutes - initially, Daniel Ljuboja's dangerous penalty kick was saved by goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, but later, after failing to clear the danger, Besart Berisha, left free in the far corner, sent the ball into the net. "Hamburger" continued to dominate the field and threatened the opponents' goal several times with Rafael van der Vaart, but in the middle of the second half, the visitors scored again after a solo run by Yuri Zhirkov, outsmarting a couple of opponents and finding the net past Stefan Wachter.
Four minutes later, "Hamburger" coach Thomas Doll substituted Atouba, who then began to show offensive gestures and attacked his own coaches, for which he was sent off the field. Nevertheless, the German club managed to forget the incident and withdraw from the tournament triumphantly. With six minutes left until the end of the match, R. van der Vaart equalized the score with a precise shot, and in extra time, after a crossbar pass, Boubacar Sanogo snatched the first victory for the hosts with a powerful shot.
