Now the jeopardy really kicks in for the Champions League with a title chase, pride and hard cash on the line.
At least four former European champions will be among eight teams eliminated when the new knockout playoff round ends this week.
Real Madrid or Manchester City, Bayern Munich or Celtic, AC Milan or Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven or Juventus.
Their European seasons will be over in February before even reaching the round of 16 that teams like Madrid and Man City, who meet in their second-leg game Wednesday (Thrusday, Macau time), have come to expect.
Indeed, City coach Pep Guardiola has never failed in 16 seasons of coaching — four at Barcelona, three at Bayern and nine in Manchester — to take his team to the round of 16 in the Champions League.
Advancing to the last-16 is worth 11 million euros ($11.5 million) in prize money from UEFA. While that pays just a few months of salary for Kylian Mbappé or Erling Haaland, it is a path toward a bigger share of the 2.5 billion euros ($2.6 billion) total prize fund shared by 36 teams that started in the league phase in September.
It took 152 games so far in the new expanded format — already 21% more than the entire 125-game competition in each of the past 21 seasons — just to reach this stage.
The business end of the Champions League arguably only starts now, with 37 games left through the May 31 final in Munich.
Real Madrid vs. Manchester City at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is a classic match in the modern Champions League: A 3-3 draw in the quarterfinals last year and a thrilling 3-1 win for Madrid in extra-time to decide their semifinal in 2022. Each time coach Carlo Ancelotti’s team went on to win the title, extending the record to 15 in the competition’s 70-year history.
Their first meeting in Madrid, a group-stage game in September 2012, was a late comeback by Madrid with two goals after the 85th minute to win 3-2 — just as it was in Manchester last Tuesday in the first leg.
That 2012-13 season was the last time City did not play in the round of 16. The English champion’s streak of 11 straight years, including finally lifting the trophy in 2023, is at serious risk Wednesday.
Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund start home games with leads from the first leg as they seek to join Bayer Leverkusen in the round of 16. Bayern hosts Celtic on Tuesday with a 2-1 lead and Dortmund starts 3-0 up on Sporting Lisbon in the early game Wednesday.
Paris Saint-Germain also has a 3-0 advantage at home, against Brest on Wednesday. It will be the clubs’ third meeting in 19 days. Benfica also won on the road, 1-0 at Monaco, and hosts the return leg on Tuesday (Wednesday, Macau time).
Juventus takes a 2-1 lead to Eindhoven on Wednesday and Club Brugge is 2-1 up going to Atalanta on Tuesday in Bergamo. About 30 miles away, in Tuesday’s early game, AC Milan hosts Feyenoord trying to overturn a 1-0 deficit. GRAHAM DUNBAR, Sports Writer, MDT/AP
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