Category: UEFA Competitions

• Dortmund win 3-0 in Portugal; Mbangula lifts Juve
• Dembélé takes Brest apart to show PSG are contenders

Serhou Guirassy scored one and set up another in Borussia Dortmund’s 3-0 victory at Sporting in their Champions League playoff first leg to put last year’s finalists in the driving seat for a spot in the last 16.

The top scorer in this season’s Champions League headed in his 10th goal of the competition on the hour mark before providing Pascal Gross with a perfect assist to double the lead in the 68th minute.

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Jude Bellingham’s injury-time winner shattered an ailing Manchester City, who led twice through Erling Haaland

2012-13 (group stage)

Madrid 3-2 City

City 1-1 Madrid

City 0-0 Madrid

Madrid 1-0 City (agg: 1-0)

Madrid 1-2 City

City 2-1 Madrid (agg: 4-2)

Madrid 1-1 City

City 4-0 Madrid (agg: 5-1)

Madrid 3-3 City

City 1-1 Madrid (agg: 4-4; pens: 3-4)

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• Scottish side welcome ‘football royalty’ on Wednesday
• Hosts boosted by Daizen Maeda return after ban appeal

Brendan Rodgers wants Bayern Munich to experience “hurt” at Celtic Park after taking pride in his team’s European improvement this season.

Bayern’s visit to Glasgow marks the first time since 2013 that Celtic will play knockout Champions League football, with Rodgers contemplating his most significant scalp yet. Celtic are the heavy underdogs to see off the German giants over two legs but Rodgers has challenged his players to keep the tie competitive before they head to the Allianz Arena next week. Slovan Bratislava, RB Leipzig and Young Boys have already been defeated at Celtic Park this season, with the hosts unbeaten in their last half-dozen home European games.

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An injury crisis means Carlo Ancelotti must get creative in the Champions League playoff against Manchester City

Dani Carvajal, Antonio Rüdiger, David Alaba, Éder Militão and Marcelo were in the team photo before the Madrid derby at the Bernabéu on Saturday night. A seriously impressive defence, it was just a pity they weren’t playing. Instead, Marcelo was there so they could pay homage to the full-back, who won 25 trophies with the club, in the week he announced his retirement. The other four had come to join him and support their teammates. None were dressed in white; all are injured.

All of which would be bad enough, but it was about to get worse. The following afternoon, having been named in the squad to travel to Manchester, the captain pulled out too. In the past fortnight Lucas Vázquez had missed visits to Valladolid and Leganés as a precaution but eventually he too fell, calling from home after Sunday’s training session to say something wasn’t right in his thigh. He was the backup, a midfielder at full-back, albeit one who has played there for so long now that it has become his default role. There have been 36 injuries at Madrid this season, 26 of them muscular.

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• Two teams meet again in Champions League playoffs
• City have faced Madrid five times in past six years

On the eve of Real Madrid’s Champions League playoff first leg at Manchester City, Carlo Ancelotti billed the clash between the sides as a “clásico”.

Madrid’s trip to the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night and the return at the Santiago Bernabéu on Wednesday next week will be the fifth time in six years the sides have played each other in the knockout phase. While the Spanish and English champions have each previously progressed twice, Ancelotti was clear about how he rates encounters between them.

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Shootouts are the least bad way the game has found to settle drawn matches, but they should be a last resort

So Uefa is considering doing away with extra time, at least in the knockout stage of the Champions League, another grand old tradition swept away as the arc of history bends towards the generation of revenue for the already wealthy. This is the way of the world and so it is the way of football, all that is great and glorious about the game desecrated to produce more content to be sold.

But first, a caveat, an increasingly necessary one as middle age hurtles by. Is this about age? Are our responses to extra time conditioned by our formative years? My first FA Cup final was 1982, a drab game enlivened by Glenn Hoddle putting Tottenham ahead after 110 minutes and Terry Fenwick heading an equaliser five minutes later (Spurs then won the replay). The Schumacher-Battiston World Cup semi-final in Seville came six weeks later: at 90 minutes it was 1-1, by the 98th minute it was 3-1 to France and by the end it was 3-3 and West Germany had won on penalties. The following year’s FA Cup final also went to extra time as Manchester United drew with Brighton; although there were no goals in the added 30 minutes, there was the drama of Gordon Smith’s late miss.

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• Competition’s last two winners to battle for last-16 place
• PSG face all-French tie against surprise packages Brest

Manchester City must overcome Real Madrid if they are to keep their Champions League hopes alive after the pair were drawn together for a blockbuster playoff tie.

In a fiendish consequence of City’s scratchy league phase, which saw them narrowly avoid early elimination by finishing 22nd, they will face the La Liga leaders and reigning European champions next month. Celtic have been dealt an equally tough assignment in the form of Bayern Munich. The play-off winners will all enter the round of 16 but there is no further safety net for those defeated.

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• Akanji: ‘No team wants to face us’ in Champions League
• City will play Real Madrid or Bayern Munich in playoffs

Manuel Akanji is convinced Manchester City can rediscover their best levels to go far in the Champions League and has warned Real Madrid and Bayern Munich they can “beat every team in Europe”.

City advanced to the playoff round with Wednesday’s 3-1 home win over Club Brugge and will face Real or Bayern, with the first leg set for the Etihad Stadium the week after next. The away tie is the week after.

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The final night of the group stage produced plenty of drama. We hand out honours and dishonours from the latest round of action

Manchester City

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Trying to keep across 29 hours’ worth of football was not just akin to major substance abuse but a cause of fear and panic

Raspberry Beret by Prince, Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees, American Pie by Don McLean, All I Want is You by U2, the theme tune to Sesame Street: these are all in their different ways excellent pieces of music. But as part of playlists broadcast without end and at high volume, all have been used by the US army in psychological warfare – demonstrating that too much of a good thing is not just possible but, at extreme levels, absolutely excruciating. Watching the manic conclusion to the Champions League group stage on Wednesday brought those playlists to mind, as I debated whether I was being entertained or encouraged to run screaming from my house.

The trend in sport for many years has been to make competitions bigger, longer, more drawn out, and at first the new 36-team Champions League format felt like another step on this tiresome journey. But the widely acknowledged need for the final games of a group stage to be played at the same time forced tournament organisers into a temporary swerve in a very different direction. If you watched the final round of fixtures traditionally, soberly, one game at a time, even without breaks or pauses it would take you one entire day and five additional hours, including stoppage time.

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City went behind just before half-time but Savinho, on as sub, helped change the game, and City ran out comfortable winners to qualify for the playoffs

Which is to say there are a lot of teams in the playoff and last 16 who, if they turn up, are capable of beating opponents with more money. I guess the likelihood is that, by the last eight and definitely by the last four, it’s the usual names, but don’t rule out some surprises. No one will fancy facing Atalanta or Villa, while Leverkusen also have a chance.

I may receive heat for this hot take, but none of the below are all that are they? Liverpool are good, of course, but they’re not that good; already this season, Barca have lost to Osasuna, Las Palmas and Leganes; yet they’ve clattered Madrid, who generally hang about until someone good does something good, twice; and so on.

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All five British clubs survived to fight another day as the Champions League league phase came to an end

Here we go, then. It’s on. I’m going in. Good luck everyone.

The teams are out! Of the 36 currently doing their stretches, politely listening to corporate anthems, shaking hands, tossing coins and swapping pennants, only 11 are sure of their fate. Liverpool and Barcelona are definitely through to the last 16; Bologna, Sparta Prague, RB Leipzig, Girona, Red Star Belgrade, Sturm Graz, RB Salzburg, Slovan Bratislava and Young Boys already know the jig is up. Everyone else pensive, in their special place. A kind of hush, all over the continent tonight. The calm before the storm. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes.

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