Inter Milan, AC Milan and Chelsea all virtually sealed their places in the knockout phase of the Champions League on Wednesday by maintaining 100 percent starts with their third successive victories.
No team has ever failed to qualify for the next stage of the competition after winning their three opening group matches, and on Wednesday's evidence that will not happen this season either.
Inter Milan were the biggest winners on the night, scoring a sensational 5-1 win over Valencia in Spain in Group G to leave the Spanish club, last season's UEFA Cup winners, in third place and looking unlikely to progress.
Valencia had won eight and drawn one of their previous nine home European matches but were completely swamped after the break by a rampant Inter who got five different men on the scoresheet including Adriano who took his tally for the season in all competitions to 12 goals.
"All I can do is to congratulate Inter," Valencia's Italian coach Claudio Ranieri said.
"They played incredibly well and reminded me of the great AC Milan side of some years ago. I think they will be an even better side in two or three months time.
"We did everything we could and my players tried really hard but they were just too good for us tonight."
Werder Bremen moved on to six points with their 2-1 win at Anderlecht who remain bottom of the group with no points.
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Barca, who hit the bar twice including an effort in the last minute by Andres Iniesta, are second with six followed by ambitious Shakhtar Donetsk, who beat Celtic 3-0 at home to move on to three points. Celtic are bottom with none.
It was only Barcelona's second defeat in 15 away matches in Europe but they still look well placed to advance.
In Group H Chelsea won for the third time with a 2-0 victory over CSKA Moscow at Stamford Bridge to top the group with nine points to the Russian side's four.
HEADING UP
Chelsea's goals came from headers in the first half from John Terry -- who has now headed a goal in all of their three Champions League matches -- and Eidur Gudjohnsen.
"It was quite a nice, easy second half," said Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho, "but the first half was a different story.
"CSKA started the game better than us and it was a fantastic effort by our goalkeeper (Petr Cech) to make one or two great saves. The first half was difficult."
Mourinho was presented with UEFA's Coach of the Year award before that match by his old boss Bobby Robson for leading Porto to the European crown last season but his former club had another miserable night.
They lost 2-0 at Paris St Germain and look like becoming the first reigning European champions to be eliminated in the opening group phase after defeat in Paris left them with one point from their opening three matches.
PSG have three points after two opening defeats.
Arsenal, who harbour real ambitions of succeeding Porto as Champions League winners, also failed to win, being held to a 2-2 draw by Panathinaikos in Athens to lose top spot in Group E.
It was a frustrating night for the English champions with goalkeeper Jens Lehmann at fault for Panathinaikos's goals.
The first came after a bizarre 65th minute mistake when he headed clear only for Ezequiel Gonzalez to latch on to the loose bouncing ball and lob it back over Lehmann's head and into the goal from an acute angle 25 metres out on the right.
ARSENAL MISTAKES
Fredrik Ljungberg had earlier given Arsenal the lead -- Thierry Henry restored it at 2-1 -- but poor keeping allowed Emmanuel Olisadebe to make it 2-2 nine minutes from time.
"We have to be satisfied with what we have got," said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. "We should have got three but we have to settle for one and that's no shame against a side that won the double in Greece last year."
PSV Eindhoven, who have never progressed from the group stages in five previous campaigns, won 2-1 at Rosenborg Trondheim to leapfrog Arsenal into first place with six points to Arsenal's five with Panathinaikos on four and Rosenborg one.
While three of the four groups in action on Wednesday are topped by clubs with nine points, only one of those that featured on Tuesday is -- and almost inevitably that team is Italians Juventus, who have maximum points in Group C.
Monaco (Group A), Bayer Leverkusen (Group B) and Olympique Lyon (Group D) are the other leaders heading into the fourth round of matches in two weeks' time.
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