Champions League’s confusion phase yields a final-day conclusion: Man City, after collapse at PSG, must win

For most of the 2024-25 Champions League’s first 126 games, nobody knew anything. Goals flew in, and giants floundered, but what did it all mean? The competition’s new format, with a “league phase” replacing groups, made conclusions murky.

Until now.

On Wednesday, the penultimate day of the league phase, Manchester City blew a 2-0 lead at Paris Saint-Germain, and plunged into the bottom 12 of the Champions League table.

PSG’s comeback, to win 4-2, propelled the Parisians up into 22nd place — narrowly inside the top 24, the knockout-round places — and left City in 25th, two points below 24th.

Remarkably, after multiple collapses and only two victories in seven tries, City remains alive. A win at home against Club Brugge on the final matchday, next Wednesday, would be enough to secure a spot in the play-in round.

But a win, finally, is a must. The new format — which grants 24 of 36 teams a place in the knockout round — has been forgiving to City, the four-time reigning champion of England and the preseason Champions League favorite. City, however, has been so unfathomably bad that its room for error is now nil.

And finally, elsewhere in the Champions League, there is some clarity.

Of the 24 places in the knockouts, 18 have been claimed.

The last six will be won, or coughed up, next week.

2024-25 Champions League with one round to go

With one chaotic round of games to go, here’s how the Champions League stacks up:

Clinched bye to Round of 16 (2): Liverpool (21), Barcelona (18)

Clinched knockout rounds, in contention for bye (16): Arsenal (16), Inter Milan (16), Atlético Madrid (15), AC Milan (15), Atalanta (14), Bayer Leverkusen (13), Aston Villa (13), Monaco (13), Lille (13), Brest (13), Feyenoord (13), Borussia Dortmund (12), Bayern Munich (12), Real Madrid (12), Juventus (12), Celtic (12)

In contention for knockout rounds (9): PSV (11), Club Brugge (11), Benfica (10), PSG (10), Sporting Clube de Portugal (10), Stuttgart (10), Manchester City (8), Dinamo Zagreb (8), Shakhtar Donetsk (7)

Eliminated (9): Bologna (5), Sparta Prague (4), RB Leipzig (3), Girona (3), Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) (3), Sturm Graz (3), RB Salzburg (3), BSC Young Boys (1), Slovan Bratislava (0)

Within that bucket of byes, in theory, there are incentives attached to higher finishes. As the likely top two, for example, Liverpool and Barcelona wouldn’t face each other until the final, because the knockout rounds will be bracketed and seeded. They also wouldn’t face the third- and fourth-place teams until the semis. They’ll get an opponent seeded 15th-18th in the Round of 16, and one seeded no better than 7th in the quarterfinals.

All of those, on paper, are advantages. But the league phase has been so messy that the actual value of top seeds is unclear. Three of the four pre-competition favorites, Real Madrid, Man City and Bayern Munich, now sit in 15th, 16th and 25th place with one match to go.

And tiny margins still separate most of the pack. Eighth-place Bayer Leverkusen is on 13 points; so is 13th-place Brest; and 18th-place Celtic is on 12. Goal differential, and perhaps other tiebreakers, will determine who finishes exactly where.

Which means, of course, that the final day — next Wednesday, when all 36 teams play simultaneously — will be bonkers. The drama will be unprecedented. The two-hour rollercoaster will be wild.

But the permutations are still too confusing to outline. The only clear one is that City must win.

Why Man City will still advance with a win

City, on the surface, is in trouble, two points below the cutline with one match to play. But, per a variety of statistical models, Pep Guardiola’s team is still favored to advance, and the scenarios are quite simple — mostly because City plays a direct rival on the final day.

With one match to go, the table looks like this:

If City were to beat Brugge, it would leapfrog the Belgian club on goal differential.

The only team from below the cutline that would then be capable of leapfrogging City would be Dinamo Zagreb — which would have to win by at least 11 goals.

But even in that completely unrealistic unrealistic scenario, City would also finish above either PSG or Stuttgart — who are level on 10 points and face each other on the final day.

So, while the implications of various results are complicated for most, for City they are straightforward: Win and you’re in; lose or draw and you’re out.