Barcelona are out of the UEFA Champions League even before the start of their tonight’s Group B match against Bayern Munich following Inter Milan’s 4-0 victory over Viktoria Plzeň in the other game of the group on Wednesday night.

The fate of Barcelona progressing to the round of 16 of the competition was in the hands of Viktoria Plzeň, with the Catalans hoping the Czech club could at least hold Inter to a draw to keep their qualification to the knockout phase alive.

Inter began to control the game from the blow of the whistle but struggled to convert their chances until the 35th when Henrikh Mkhitaryan broke the deadlock to give the Italian side the lead, Edin Džeko doubled the lead for Inter barely seven minutes later.

The first half ended Inter 2-0 Plzeň at the San Siro stadium.

Inter began the second half from where they left it in the first 45 minutes of the encounter, maintaining total dominance of the ball which paid off when Džeko scored his brace of the night to put the Italian side 3-nil up.

Romelu Lukaku’s 87th minute strike sealed the win for Inter as club’s players, officials and fans jumped into wild celebrations at the blow of the full time whistle.

The victory sent Inter to the round of 16 stage of the competition as they joined Bayern Munich as the two teams from the group but same cannot be said of Barcelona, whom the result condemned to the UEFA Europa League.

Barcelona have now failed to move past the group stage in two consecutive seasons.

Irrespective of the result of the last matches of the group stage, Inter will be ahead of Barcelona thanks to UEFA head-to-head rule. 

Inter defeated Barcelona 1-0 in the first leg of the group game before playing a 3-3 draw in the return leg.

Meanwhile, two Nigerians were in action as Zaidu Sanusi’s Porto defeated Raphael Onyedika’s Club Brugge 4-0 at home in the other earlier kickoff game.

Mehdi Taremi scored in the 33rd minute of the game as Porto walked away with a 1-0 first half win of the Group B fixture.

His goal was the first conceded by Club Brugge in this year’s Champions League campaign.

Evanilson doubled the visitors’ lead just seven minutes into the second half before Stephen Eustáquio extended it to three few minutes later.

Taremi got his brace of the night to further compound to the Brugge’s woes.

There was no goal for the remainder of the match as the Portuguese side walked away with a vital 4-0 victory and the maximum three points.

Club Brugge have already qualified to the next round of the competition but Porto can only hope Atletico Madrid play a draw or lose their Group B game against Bayer Leverkusen tonight to confirm their qualification.

Any different outcome from the above, will open the qualification pathway until the final game of the group.