Inter Milan, Chelsea and AC Milan kept their records perfect on Wednesday as the Champions League group stage reached the halfway mark.
Taking the lead with goals early in the second half from Dejan Stankovic and Christian Vieri, Inter Milan glided to a 5-1 victory at Valencia to improve to nine points atop Group G.
It was the bad birthday present for Valencia coach Claudio Ranieri, who turned 53 on Wednesday.
Pablo Aimar cut the lead to 2-1 in the 72nd minute, but Inter poured in three more from Andy Van der Meyde, Leite Adriano and Julio Cruz.
”They did everything better than us,” Ranieri said. ”And they killed us off. After their two goals we reacted well and we worked very hard. The third goal killed us off. Five goals were too many.”
Werder Bremen moved into second place in the group with six points after a 2-1 victory at Anderlecht.
Chelsea converted first-half headers from John Terry and Eidur Gudjohnsen, defeating CSKA Moscow 2-0 at Stamford Bridge in London for its third victory in three Group H games.
Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho is undefeated in 14 straight Champions League matches, which includes last season with champion Porto. He fended off questions about striker Adrian Mutu, who tested positive for cocaine use and is facing a possible two-year ban.
”The players don’t deserve their manager speaking about other players,” Mourinho said. ”I won’t speak about players who didn’t participate in this game”
”I think we played great matches against Porto and Paris St Germain, but tonight wasn’t a good game.”
Despite the loss, CSKA stayed in second place with four points.
Paris St Germain moved into third, beating defending champion Porto 2-0. Porto has only one point from three games and is set to become the first defending champion ousted in the group stage.
AC Milan kept its record perfect in Group F with a 1-0 victory over Barcelona on Andriy Shevchenko’s 31st-minute goal. Barca also entered the game with a perfect record. Ukraine club Shakhtar Donetsk picked up its first points with a 3-0 home win over Celtic.
The Scots have loss all three games.
”We can breathe a little easier now,” Shevchenko said ”It was a very tough game. Barca is a great team. In the second half we let them play — maybe we could have played better. But it was a good victory.”
The major upset was English league leader Arsenal, which slumped to a 2-2 draw in Group E at Greek side Panathinaikos. Emmanuel Olisadebe got the equaliser in the 82nd. Thierry Henry gave Arsenal a 2-1 lead in the 74th.
Fredrik Ljungberg put the Gunners into an early lead, with Ezequiel Gonzalez leveling in the 65th.
Arsenal has five points and the Greeks four.
PSV Eindhoven took advantage, defeating Rosenborg 2-1 to improve to six points and take the group lead. John de Jong netted the winner four minutes from the end. Jefferson Farfan scored early for PSV with Oyvind Storflor equalizing in the 42nd.
The only other undefeated team after three games is Juventus, which defeated Bayern Munich 1-0 in Tuesday’s round of eight games.
Three more rounds remain to be played with the two teams from each of the eight groups moving to the knock-out second stage of Europe’s top club tournament. Though it’s not mathematically certain, the four clubs with perfect records are almost sure to advance.
In Tuesday’s games – Group A: Monaco 2, Olympiakos 1; Liverpool 0, Deportivo 0. Group B – Real Madrid 1, Dynamo Kiev 0; Bayer Leverkusen 3, AS Roma 1. Group C – Juventus 1, Bayern Munich 0; Ajax Amsterdam 3, Maccabi Tel Aviv 0; Group D – Sparta Prague 0, Manchester United 0; Fenerbahce 1, Olympique Lyon 3. – Sapa-AP