Paris Saint-Germain and Kylian Mbappe were left holding a ticket to the Champions League knockout round after a tense finish to the tightest group saw Newcastle let their chance slip.
Porto also earned their place in the round-of-16 draw on Monday with a 5-3 victory over Shakhtar Donetsk, who needed to win to advance.
PSG’s 1-1 draw at Group F winners Borussia Dortmund — earned by 17-year-old Warren Zaire-Emery’s 56th-minute leveller — was enough to secure second place because Newcastle lost 2-1 at home to AC Milan.
“We are still alive,” said PSG coach Luis Enrique, whose unseeded team can now be drawn to face Manchester City, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich.
“No team will hope to play us in the next round.”
Newcastle were in the box seat kicking off the second half with a one-goal lead but ended in last place without even the consolation prize of entering the second-tier Europa League as third-placed finishers.
That reward flipped to Milan when they took the lead in the 84th as substitute Samuel Chukwueze raced clear to score one minute after coming on from the bench. Milan had levelled in the 59th on United States playmaker Christian Pulisic’s goal.
Newcastle joined Manchester United in losing at home — United on Tuesday — to finish bottom of a group and give England their weakest round-of-16 challenge for 11 years: just defending champions Manchester City and Arsenal are in the draw.
“We are absolutely devastated,” Newcastle manager Eddie Howe said.
The 16-team line-up was completed by Porto, who finished runners-up in Group H to Barcelona.
Atletico Madrid’s 2-0 win over Lazio ensured they would finish top of Group E.
Manchester City sent out a team of few regular starters — including former ball boy Micah Hamilton who scored on his debut — to win 3-2 at Red Star Belgrade and ensure the defending champion scompleted a six-win program atop Group G.
Europa playoffs
The third-placed teams in the groups keep playing in February in the knockout playoffs for the second-tier Europa League.
The teams are Galatasaray, Lens, Braga, Benfica, Feyenoord, AC Milan, Young Boys and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Those teams will be unseeded, playing the home leg first, against runners-up teams in the Europa League groups.
Winners of the Europa League playoffs advance to the round of 16 to face group winners like Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen, current leaders of the Premier League and Bundesliga, respectively.
The Champions League said farewell on Wednesday to the traditional round-robin groups of four teams playing each other home and away.
Last year, Uefa approved an expanded 36-team format under pressure from clubs who want more guaranteed games, a varied programme with more money.
Each team in the 2024-25 Champions League will play eight games instead of six, against eight different opponents, in a single standings to rank them.
The top eight teams in January 2025 will advance to a 16-team knockout phase in a seeded draw like a tennis tournament bracket. Teams placed 9 through 24 in the standings will be paired in two-leg playoffs to fill the round-of-16 bracket.
