FC Barcelona and Juventus both advanced into the group stage of the Soccer Betting Champions League based on their first leg wins last week. Barcelona routed Wisla Krakow 4-0 last week while Juventus won 4-0 against Artmedia. Tuesday’s second leg results were virtually meaningless as Barcelona lost 1-0 and Juventus played Artmedia to a 1-1 draw. Juventus and FC Barcelona both easily advanced on aggregate.

Greek side Panathinaikos advanced as well into the group stage of the Champions league with a 1-0 win over Sparta Prague. Panathinaikos had won 2-1 in the first leg last week.

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Juventus has not been to the group stage for two years because they were relegated to the second division because of the match-fixing scandal. They had no trouble in this qualifying matchup with Artmedia. Barcelona advanced even though they suffered a meaningless loss that gave new coach Pep Guardiola his first defeat. "I don't think today we have taken a step backwards in our preparations," Guardiola said. "Perhaps we weren't so precise but we had an opponent which was also playing and we had five or six chances with only the goalkeeper to beat. We lost but we could have drawn or even won." Since Barcelona really had things clinched with the 4-0 win in the first leg they rested Olympic champion Lionel Messi, who recently returned from Beijing after playing for Argentina.

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A team that is expected to advance into the group stage is Liverpool but they didn’t play well in the first leg against Standard Liege, as they were lucky to get a draw. Manager Rafa Benitez has demanded a much better performance on Wednesday since a loss would mean missing the group stage of the Soccer Betting Champions League. "From the start of the season we are always under pressure - always," Benitez said, "I think it's important to say (to the players) listen, 'We have to play well, we have to improve.' If we play well, score goals and win some games in a row, we can talk about titles, but for me at the moment the main thing for me is to improve the game." Liverpool is well aware of the pressure. "Everyone knows how important it is for our season to get into the group stage," defender Jamie Carragher said. "You have to bear in mind this is probably the biggest game of the season already, and in some cases it may be the most important match they've ever had in their career. It would be unthinkable for us not to be in the Champions League. You just want to get this qualifier out the way, put Europe on the backburner for a while and get focused for a couple of months on doing well in the league."

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