Paris St Germain extended their Ligue 1 lead to 13 points with a 4-3 home victory against Girondins de Bordeaux on Sunday but the French champions were again exposed at the back and had Neymar sent off. A Marquinhos double, Edinson Cavani's 200th PSG goal and a goal by Kylian Mbappe put the capital side on 65 points from 26 games but they lost captain Thiago Silva to a muscle injury and Neymar picked up a straight red card for a late challenge in stoppage time.
Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane denied his side were facing a crisis after they drew 1-1 at home to La Liga minnows Eibar and racked up a fourth consecutive draw for the first time in more than 10 years.
Kingsley Coman scored one goal and set up another as Bayern Munich came from a goal behind to beat VfB Stuttgart 3-1 on Saturday and defend their top spot in the Bundesliga.
A late equaliser cost hosts Equatorial Guinea an opening win at the African Nations Cup finals as they drew 1-1 with Congo on Saturday before Gabon beat Burkina Faso 2-0 to top Group A.
Liverpool failed to muster a single shot on target in a Champions League game for the first time since a 1-0 defeat to Benfica in February 2006.
Arjen Robben grabbed his 100th goal for the club as undefeated Bayern Munich outclassed Freiburg 2-0.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Frustrated Arsenal winger Lukas Podolski hinted on Thursday he might leave the Premier League club before his contract expires in 2016 because he was not playing enough.
Arsenal's dramatic 2-1 Champions League win against Anderlecht on Wednesday rescued three valuable points but the victory only served to paper over the ever-widening cracks.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
News of all that tranpired on and off the football field.
Bayern Munich, already crowned Bundesliga champions last week, lifted the league trophy in an empty stadium on Saturday after crushing hosts VfL Wolfsburg 4-0 on the final matchday. Bayern can win more silverware next week with the German Cup final against Bayer Leverkusen. They are also still in the Champions League.
Croatia will need their big-game players to step up.
A round of Wednesday night's Champions League group stage matches.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Champions Bayern Munich opened up an eight-point lead in the Bundesliga at the start of the German season's one-month winter break by beating Hanover 96 1-0 on Saturday amid mounting speculation over the future of coach Pep Guardiola.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Liverpool held their nerve to win an astonishing penalty shoot-out 11-10 and edge out Chelsea in the English League Cup final on Sunday after a rip-roaring contest had somehow ended 0-0 after extra time at Wembley.
Bayern Munich will not be deterred by what the club say are false reports of discontent in coach Pep Guardiola's team as they focus on becoming the first side to win a fourth straight Bundesliga title. "We can make German football history," sports director Matthias Sammer told reporters. "And I am not talking about the Champions League but the 'magical four'. This is what drives us." Bayern, who travel to Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday, are eight points clear at the top of the Bundesliga but they have had to deal with a number of issues on and off the pitch recently. A string of injuries to central defenders including Spaniard Javi Martinez, who will be out for four weeks, and Germany international Jerome Boateng, sidelined for three months, forced the Bavarians to bring in former Germany international Serdar Tasci on loan from Spartak Mosc
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It was a combination of a traditionally English focus on the manager as leader and frontman with German coaching's attention to detail and allied with a management style more akin to the ultra-specialised world of American football.
Tottenham Hotspur's success in claiming a top-four Premier League finish on Wednesday to guarantee Champions League football next season has been a "massive achievement", manager Mauricio Pochettino said.
For the first time since 1998, the Champions League final will feature two teams who entered the competition as domestic champions, a throwback to the day's of the old European Cup when only a country's title winners were allowed to enter.
Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich suffered their first league defeat in 18 months when they slumped to a 1-0 loss at Augsburg on Saturday as Sascha Moelder's first-half strike ended their record 53-game unbeaten league run.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
"We want to get back the trust and confidence in our own skills, in our quality. That needs time," he told reporters.
Two defeats and one last-gasp victory in the group stage meant an embarrassed Germany made their earliest World Cup exit in 80 years on Wednesday.
Ferguson, who makes the comments in the documentary 'Sir Alex Ferguson: Secrets of Success', to be screened on BBC One on October 31, also defends David Moyes' ill-fated appointment as his successor.
Mueller scores brace in is 200th Bundeliga match
Fourth division club Carl Zeiss Jena stunned Hamburg SV 3-2 in the German Cup on Sunday, taking the scalp of the Bundesliga's former European champions to cause the biggest sensation of the competition's first round.
A round-up of Saturday's football action in La Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1.
Injury-ravaged Bayern Munich beat Hoffenheim 2-0 on Saturday, shrugging off a string of absences and their midweek Champions League defeat at Porto to close in on the Bundesliga title.
The Bavarians have now won the German league title a record 29 times.
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Real Madrid's stuttering run continued as they were held 1-1 at home by La Liga minnows Eibar on Sunday, drawing a fourth consecutive game in all competitions for the first time in more than a decade.
Robert Lewandowski and Arjen Robben struck twice apiece as champions Bayern Munich annihilated promoted Paderborn 6-0 on Saturday to open an 11-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga.
Real Madrid are determined to create an intimidating atmosphere for visitors VfL Wolfsburg as they try to overturn a two-goal deficit in Tuesday's Champions League quarter-final second leg at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
But after English FA's intervention, the Bundesliga giants have now allowed the 17-year-old to feature in Steve Cooper's side only for the group stages.
A summary of Wednesday's matches in the UEFA Champions League.
Images from the Champions League matches played across Europe on Tuesday
