Champions League preview: Who is through, who is not as first phase gets set for frantic finale | Football News

Manchester City players train ahead of their must-win Champions League game against Club Brugge. (AP)

The new league phase of this season’s expanded UEFA Champions League is set for a frantic conclusion on Wednesday.
18 matches will be played simultaneously across Europe and the likes of Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are the teams in focus as they battle to avoid an early exit.
How it works for playoffs
The top eight teams, in the 36-club format, will qualify automatically for the next stage in the competition. Meanwhile, the teams that finish between ninth to 24th in the standings will go into Friday’s draw for the playoffs. There, the first legs will be played on February 11 and 12 and the return matches a week later.
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The teams that finish higher up in the standings will be rewarded by facing teams that finished further down the table in the playoffs. So, teams finishing ninth and 10th will face the side either in 23rd or 24th place, while 15th and 16th will face either 17th or 18th.

In this revised format, teams from same country can be drawn together and there is a potential for teams that have already played this season to meet once again.
Having said all that, plenty can change, or will change, on Wednesday, but based on the current points table PSG could play Lille in the playoffs, while Bayern or Real Madrid could play Juventus or Celtic.
The Top 8 places up for grabs

For the teams that finish in the top-eight places, there is the incentive of skipping the two-legged knockout round playoffs, getting some precious rest as they advance straight to the last-16 in March.
Liverpool, with seven wins out of seven, and Barcelona are the only two teams to have already booked their place in the last-16.
Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen occupy the other six spots. That could change dramatically in this closely-contested new structure.
Take this into consideration: Stuttgart, in 24th position, are only three points behind Bayer Leverkusen in eighth, with 15 sides in between them.
Arsenal and Inter Milan need only draw away to Girona and at home to Monaco, respectively, in order to secure their last-16 spots.
Who is on the brink of elimination?

Only nine of the 36 teams come into the final matchday still fighting to secure qualification for the next phase, including former European Cup winners PSV Eindhoven and Benfica.
Big names like defending champions Real Madrid, last season’s runners-up Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Juventus are all hoping to avoid going into the playoffs. However, they are already guaranteed to at least be in February’s playoff round.
Meanwhile, the biggest name under threat of going out completely is Manchester City. The 2023 champions are currently languishing in 25th position, one place and two points outside the qualifying spots.
Pep Guardiola’s team were beaten 4-2 away at PSG last week and have taken a single point from their last four games in the competition.
“Today we don’t deserve it,” Guardiola said when asked following the PSG defeat if the new format was fair.
“What is the argument that it isn’t fair? I said to the players to accept it and recover. We have to recover our game, that is what we have to do.”
City, sitting in a challenging position, know a win in their last match – against Club Brugge at the Etihad Stadium – will take them through.