Champions League Briefing: 18 matches, 64 goals, three hat-tricks, plenty of drama

There were 18 matches, 64 goals, three hat-tricks and plenty of drama on the final day of the new-look league phase of the Champions League.

Liverpool lost on the night, 3-2 away to PSV Eindhoven, but finished top. That isn’t perhaps as good as it sounds though, given they might now face Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16.

The top eight advanced direct to the last 16, while those clubs from ninth to 24th will contest a playoff to decide which eight teams join them. The draw for the playoffs is on Friday, January 31, and those two-legged ties take place on February 11/12 and February 18/19.

One of the main talking points before the matches kicked off was Manchester City, who were 25th in the table and just outside the playoff spots. They fought back at the Etihad to beat Club Brugge 3-1 and finished 22nd. Their struggles in Europe have resulted in a playoff match-up against either Real Madrid, the reigning European champions, or Bayern Munich.

Barcelona drew 2-2 with Atalanta which meant Gian Piero Gasperini’s side dropped out of the top eight. Aston Villa took advantage thanks to a hat-trick from Morgan Rogers against Celtic. There were hat-tricks elsewhere for two Frenchmen — Marcus Thuram in Inter’s win against Monaco and Ousmane Dembele as PSG swept past Stuttgart.

So, what else caught our eye on a jam-packed night of Champions League action?

Well, PSG didn’t play for a draw against Stuttgart, that’s for sure. We still haven’t worked out what the Arsenal goalkeeper Neto was up to for Arnaut Danjuma’s goal for Girona. Manchester City are through but does that mean they are back? How did the USMNT players get on? And we bring you a beautiful goal that couldn’t have mattered less…

Are Manchester City back?

Manchester City are through, then.

Well, sort of.

For the 2023 champions to even be in this situation was pretty embarrassing, needing a win on the final day of the group stage just to make the playoffs, with automatic qualification long gone.

At half-time against Club Brugge, it looked like it would be even more embarrassing, 1-0 down and heading out of the competition entirely. After the domestic season they have endured, would you really have been surprised?

Ultimately they scored three times in the second half, but it was impossible to escape the idea that they had got away with it, scraping through to the playoffs, and you wouldn’t bet huge amounts on them going any further than that.


(Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)

They’ll play either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich in that playoff, and while both potential opponents have their flaws (as evidenced by the fact they’re forced to play these extra two games nobody needs), City will almost certainly go into either tie as significant underdogs.

City’s form has recovered from the catastrophe of their November and December, winning six of their last eight games. But their fragility was on display here, fragility that will now face either Harry Kane and Jamal Musiala, or Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior.

Nick Miller

Did the final day live up to the hype? 

This final day of the league phase was supposed to be one of the key selling points of the Swiss model, the opportunity for a night of high drama, where anything could happen, 18 games simultaneously.

In the end it was a strange evening, with so much going on that it was basically impossible to really keep track of it all. It was less a night of football, more a complete sensory overload, or maybe like a sort of football watching bleep test, with no scope to pause before you’re off again, with another goal from a game shoved in your face.

It was exciting in a way, but at the same time really difficult to glean any context to any of the goals that were flying in. It was chaos, which can be enjoyable, but this just felt quite stressful. 

On the other hand, if you were able to zoom out a little and take it all in, there were some great moments, not least the sight of Aston Villa and Club Brugge players crowding around a phone at full-time, eagerly seeking news from elsewhere to tell them where they would finish in the table. 

Was it better than the old group structure final day? That depends on what you want from an evening of football. But ultimately it felt too much, too fast, too loud.

Nick Miller

Play for a draw? PSG had other ideas

After around half an hour of Stuttgart v. PSG it became clear that, if the two teams were planning to contrive a mutually convenient draw, they were going about it in a pretty elaborate fashion.

A point apiece would almost certainly (barring some mathematically improbable scoring elsewhere) have guaranteed both sides a place in the playoffs and avoided an embarrassing (for PSG at least) first round elimination. Thus, there was much talk of dark forces colluding to set up the draw, but given these are professional footballers with professional pride, that never seemed likely.

And so it turned out. PSG absolutely battered their German opponents in the first half, with a brace from Dembele and a brave header by Bradley Barcola sending Luis Enrique’s side into a healthy 3-0 half-time lead. They were about two inches from adding a fourth too, when Stuttgart keeper Fabian Bredlow brilliantly just kept enough of a Dembele shot ahead of the goal line.


(Tom Weller/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The game ended 4-1, PSG comfortably progressed to the playoff phase but Stuttgart just missed out, ultimately finishing 26th in the table.

Nick Miller

Where was Neto off to?

Is it a good idea to sign a back-up goalkeeper in August and wait until the last days of January to pick him?

Probably not, which is perhaps how you get surreal moments like Arsenal’s Neto standing in the no-man’s land of no-man’s land as Girona attacked, and then launching a full-length dive while about five yards outside his own penalty area as the Spanish side scored.

The 35-year-old Neto was the oldest player to debut for Arsenal in 110 years, but more than his age maybe match practice was the issue: they signed him on loan to provide back-up for David Raya, a couple of days after he had played in the Carabao Cup for Bournemouth. That meant he wasn’t able to fulfil the standard role of the reserve keeper and get some minutes in Arsenal’s least important competition.

 

Does that explain his bizarre excursion to allow Arnaut Danjuma to score? Maybe. Ultimately it all turned out OK for Arsenal, winning 2-1 and cementing their place in the automatic spots, but if they weren’t hoping that Raya stays fit for the rest of the season before, they certainly are now.

Nick Miller

How did the USMNT players get on? 

Christian Pulisic scored but could not prevent AC Milan from missing out on guaranteed qualification for the last 16, as his compatriot and team-mate Yunus Musah was sent off in their 2-1 defeat by Dinamo Zagreb.

Pulisic grabbed his fourth goal in the competition this season when he produced a fine finish in the second half to restore parity, after the Italians had gone a goal behind and been reduced to 10 men when Musah was shown a second yellow card.


(Marko Lukunic/Pixsell/MB Media/Getty Images)

It was a frustrating result for the Rossoneri, who before kick-off were sixth in the table and looking good for straight progress into the knockout phase. But their defeat in Croatia saw them shoot down to 13th.

It will be a particularly sobering night for Musah, 22, who was initially booked for an altercation with Zagreb’s Josep Misic in the first half, and then brought down Luka Stojkovic on the edge of the area eight minutes later.

For Serie A’s other American duo it was also a disappointing result, as Juventus lost 2-0 at home to Benfica.

The Turin side’s USMNT players Weston McKennie and Tim Weah both started the game as full-backs, but could not get the three points. Nevertheless, Juventus are also in the play-off phase.

It was an altogether more successful evening for USMNT striker Ricardo Pepi who scored one goal and created another as PSV Eindhoven beat table-topping Liverpool and also entered the play-off round.

Greg O’Keeffe

A match so big it kicked off late

“The match of the century”, local newspaper Ouest-France called it. Denis Le Saint, Brest’s loveable president, was of the same view. “It’s the club’s biggest-ever game,” he told L’Equipe on the morning of a date that had been circled in local calendars for months. “I didn’t even imagine playing in Europe when I took over. So to play against Real Madrid is exceptional.”

This was always going to be a celebratory occasion, a dreamscape made reality in the distinctive mizzle of France’s northwest frontierland. Madrid do Brittany: even for Brest fans, increasingly able to forget the rules that ordinarily govern these things, it was all a bit surreal.

At kick-off time, the pitch was obscured by smoke, the result of dozens of flares let off in the Tribune Est of the Stade de Roudourou. This meant the game ultimately kicked off five minutes late on a night when all 18 matches were due to be played simultaneously.

Madrid finished the league phase with a comfortable win thanks to two goals from Rodrygo and another from Jude Bellingham, but it was not enough to lift them into the top eight. They now face either Celtic or Manchester City in the playoffs.

Jack Lang

Rogers steps up for Villa while focus was on futures of Duran and Watkins

On a night at Villa Park when all the talk pre-game was about the strikers, with Jhon Duran set for a move to Saudi Arabia and Ollie Watkins the subject of interest from Arsenal, it was another of their attacking players, Morgan Rogers, who stole the show.

He scored three times to inspire their win against Celtic, which secured their place in the last 16 on a tough night for coach Unai Emery, who faced questions before and after the match about the future of both of his strikers.

On the bench, Duran, who, as revealed by The Athletic‘s David Ornstein minutes into the match, will undergo a medical ahead of a move worth €77m plus add-ons to Saudi Pro League side Al Nassr on Thursday, watched on as Watkins endured a mixed night.

In the pantheon of worst Champions League penalties ever, John Terry’s in the 2008 final has to be No. 1, but Watkins’ effort in the second half runs it close.

Watkins, who scored 19 goals in the Premier League last season without converting from the spot, has assumed penalty-taking duties this campaign. After putting Villa ahead seven minutes earlier, in part created by John McGinn’s world-class bum, Watkins missed in disastrous fashion, slipping over and blocking his shot with his left foot — causing the ball to fly over the crossbar. The fact he touched it twice meant Celtic were awarded a free-kick, too.

Duran has bailed Villa out on several occasions this season, including his stunning long-distance goal during their 1-0 win against Bayern Munich in October, but inspired by a pre-match tifo of Birmingham-born Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, they didn’t need him.

Elias Burke

The only way is up for Liverpool teenager Nallo

Liverpool and Manchester City have attempted to one-up each other for years, stemming from the intense rivalry between Pep Guardiola and former Anfield shot-caller Jurgen Klopp. But after Abdukodir Khusanov’s difficult debut on Sunday, few would have expected Amara Nallo to outdo the City man in his Champions League debut.

Like Khusanov, Nallo, 18, is an exciting young talent, but his first European outing could not have gone much worse.

Nallo replaced Jayden Danns and slotted into the left-back position vacated by Andy Robertson, an unfamiliar position to the youngster who typically plays as a central defender for Liverpool’s youth sides.

Four minutes later, he failed to deal with a long ball over his head, which allowed PSV forward Johan Bakayoko to attack the space behind him from the right wing. Unaware of Bakayoko’s position, Nallo tried to hook the ball away on the stretch, but the winger had got there first — causing the youngster to make contact with… a different ball.

As the last man, Nallo was handed his marching orders. Chin up. It’s only up from here.

Elias Burke

Lewandowski and Guirassy lead the scoring charts

With eight games played and the league phase over, there is one very familiar name and one that is not so familiar at the top of the scoring charts in this season’s competition.

Before the action began, the proverbial ball was in Robert Lewandowski’s court, who led the table with nine goals, followed by his Barcelona team-mate Raphinha with eight and Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy with seven. Vinicius Junior, also on seven after scoring twice last week, was suspended for Real Madrid’s 3-0 win over Brest.

With Barcelona facing Atalanta, a match that promised goals, Lewandowski might have thought he’d be in the money, but it was Lamine Yamal and defender Ronald Araujo who got on the scoresheet for Hansi Flick’s side. Guirassy took advantage of the opportunity, scoring twice in Dortmund’s 3-1 win against Shakhtar Donetsk to jump ahead of Raphinha and join Lewandowski at the top of the charts.


(Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images)

The Guinea striker, 28, was outstanding in the Bundesliga for Stuttgart last season, which earned his move to Dortmund, but across his whole career he had only scored seven goals in European competitions before 2024-25.

Now this season alone he has nine goals in eight games.

Elias Burke

And here is a beautiful goal that didn’t matter…

Hats off to Red Bull Salzburg for producing a spectacular goal in added time at the end of a painful defeat when they had absolutely nothing to play for but pride.

Salzburg had won one of their previous seven matches before tonight, and it quickly became apparent they were not going to add to that tally against Atletico Madrid. Diego Simeone’s side were 3-0 up at half-time and scored a fourth just after the hour mark.

But you know who didn’t care about that? Adam Daghim, that’s who.

The 19-year-old Danish forward raced on to a booming goal kick from his goalkeeper Alexander Schlager and sent a delightful half volley over the Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak.

Not a bad way to score your first goal in Europe.

(Top photo: Bakayoko celebrates his goal against Liverpool for PSV. Credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images)



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