The first few matchdays of the 2024-25 Champions League campaign were a bit strange from a general vibes perspective. We saw plenty of interesting matches and great performances, but with the freshly expanded format — four more teams, two more matchdays, four-team groups ditched for a giant, 36-team table with two-thirds of teams advancing to the knockout rounds — it was hard to really glean the stakes of what we were seeing.
It’s not hard anymore.
In Matchday 6, we saw teams officially eliminated, we saw Liverpool lock up a top-eight finish and a bye to the round of 16, we saw a couple of Europe’s richest teams (Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain) get off the mat a bit, and we saw another one (Manchester City) continue its recent tailspin. We also saw lots of goals. Twelve of 18 matches had at least three of them, and seven had at least five.
With this level of entertainment, it’s almost a shame that the competition will now basically take six weeks off — Matchdays 7-8 are in the last two weeks of January — but we’ll make do. The more time to prepare for the richest Relegation Six-Pointer of all time (Manchester City at PSG on Jan. 22), the better, eh?
Let’s once again go country-by-country to look at who’s faring well, who’s flailing and which players performed the best in Matchday 6, the best of the competition thus far.
The categories below:
‐ Title hopefuls: Teams with at least a 3% chance of winning the whole thing, per ESPN BET
‐ Fighting for the top eight: Teams with at least a 20% chance of finishing in the top eight of the league phase, per Opta
‐ Just hoping to advance: Teams with at least a 20% chance of finishing in the top 24, but a less than 20% chance of finishing in the top eight, per Opta
‐ Playing out the string: Teams with an under 20% chance of finishing in the top 24
You know your season’s going pretty well when we can nitpick semi-comfortable wins, but Liverpool both clinched a top-eight finish and left plenty to be desired in their 1-0 win over Girona on Tuesday. They scored only via a soft penalty, and goalkeeper Alisson — in his return from injury after a couple of months — had to come up with a couple of huge saves as Girona was able to open up the match at times, attempting 13 shots worth a decent 1.2 xG.
This was the first time in five away matches that Liverpool didn’t allow at least two goals — they were stretched particularly open last week in a 3-3 draw at Newcastle — and they weren’t incredibly sharp against Girona either. But they handled their business, and they remain atop the table in both of the world’s most lucrative leagues.
And now they have company.
Two weeks ago after Matchday 5, Liverpool became the overall betting favorite at 14.9%, with Manchester City (13.7%) in second and Arsenal (11.0%) in fourth. With another City loss, Arsenal and Barcelona are now tied in the No. 2 spot. And more importantly in the short-term, Arsenal saw its chances of a top-eight finish and round-of-24 bye increase by more than 20 percentage points with Wednesday’s easy 3-0 win over Monaco. Both teams had plenty of the ball in the attacking half, but only Arsenal did anything with it. And when they leveraged the ball into the right side of the attack, dangerous things usually happened thanks to the Martin Odegaard-Bukayo Saka firewall.
Saka continues to make a pretty good case for Best Right Winger in the World. He had two goals and an assist on Wednesday, and when Arsenal lost possession in his area of the pitch, he usually collected it back. He had seven ball recoveries and was one of the primary reasons why Arsenal dominated that category (they had 58% of the match’s ball recoveries).
Check out his passing maps:
Saka received 15 passes from either Odegaard, Thomas Partey or Declan Rice and sent 12 passes their way as well, and Monaco was unable to prevent the ball from flowing in their direction. Throw in a brilliant first 35 minutes from forward Gabriel Jesus — in which he had three shots worth 0.8 xG, then assisted Saka’s 34th-minute game-winner — and you had Arsenal at its best. Monaco’s Breel Embolo missed a golden opportunity in the 65th minute, then Arsenal put the match away with two goals in the last 15 minutes.
You can make a pretty easy case that Liverpool and Arsenal are the two best teams in the world right now. In fact, it’s probably harder to make any other case. We’ll see what does or doesn’t change in the six weeks until Matchday 7.
On Tuesday night in Leipzig, Aston Villa won one of the most entertaining and impactful matches of the week, a 3-2 decision that bumped up their odds of a top-eight finish by more than 30 percentage points and officially eliminated RBL from advancing. This match had four spectacular goals and a spectacularly-deflected winner from Ross Barkley, and Villa took all three points despite a spectacular match from RBL left midfielder Antonio Nusa. The shot and xG totals were similar, and RBL actually generated more opportunities in the box, but Villa got Barkley’s long deflection and another long-range strike from Jhon Durán.
He really might be the best pure finisher in the game at the moment.
Zero point zero percent. Club soccer’s season is so long and arduous that it’s sometimes hard to know what to make of a team going on a hot or cold streak in the fall months. When it comes to the odds of accomplishing their goals, such a streak might not change things all that much. But Manchester City’s month-and-a-half from hell — 10 matches, one win, seven losses since Oct. 30 — has officially begun to derail their season.
According to Opta’s power ratings, City’s odds of winning the Premier League are down to just 3.8% now that they’re in fourth place and eight points back of Liverpool (which has a game in hand). And while they’re still quite likely to advance to the Champions League knockout rounds, they’re out of the running for a top-eight finish and bye, meaning they’ll have to survive an extra round in February. And with the way the table is clustered, with 12 teams at 8-11 points, that round-of-24 matchup could be against a team like Celtic, and it could be against a team like Real Madrid.
At least the problems were different on Wednesday. That’s something, right? After watching their aging and thin midfield get overrun for weeks, resulting in tons of high-level scoring chances for opponents, City only allowed Juventus to attempt three shots worth more than 0.1. Unfortunately, two of those shots went in the net, including an All-American Tim Weah-to-Weston McKennie combination that put the match away.
Meanwhile, Juve’s defense was an ode to catenaccio: They gave City all the possession they wanted and gave up absolutely nothing in dangerous areas. City attempted 228 passes in the attacking third (Juve: 24), but completed just one of 10 crosses in open play, attempted only four shots in the game’s first 64 minutes and saw six of their 12 total shot attempts blocked. Erling Haaland managed just 18 touches and two shot attempts: one was blocked by Manuel Locatelli, the other was saved by Michele Di Gregorio, and that was that. He saw almost no opportunity in the final 50 minutes.
Based on preseason Opta simulations, the benchmark for advancing to the knockout rounds has basically been nine points. City are sitting at eight with two matches — one at PSG, one at home against Club Brugge. With the transfer market opening in three weeks, we might see a different City team for the rest of this competition. They could still catch fire in the second half of the season, as we’ve seen many times, but these are depths we have never seen from a Pep Guardiola team.
After an incredible October run of seven wins in seven matches (scoring margin: 29-5), Barcelona began to skid a bit in November. The incredibly high Barcelona defensive line, a staple of manager Hansi Flick’s style, continues to draw opponents offside at rates we haven’t really seen before — they’ve drawn 37 offsides in this competition thus far, and the other 35 teams have averaged 12.2. But it’s been pierced a lot more in recent weeks, and beginning with a 1-0 loss to Real Sociedad on Nov. 10, they’ve won just one of their last five LaLiga matches.
The Barca defense certainly proved vulnerable again at Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday, but in a wonderfully free-flowing match, they outscored the defending Champions League runners-up, 3-2, thanks to two late goals from substitute Ferran Torres.
In American football, you’ll sometimes hear an announcer say something like, “This game will come down to whoever has the ball last.” This match was sort of the soccer version of that: both teams took turns dominating the ball and the attack in the second half, and Barca just happened to be the last one to take advantage. Regardless, they secured three vital points and all but assured themselves a round-of-24 bye. Considering the fatigue levels that come with executing the Flick system, that’s a pretty good prize.
Outside of Liverpool and Arsenal, is there a better team in the world right now than Atletico Madrid? Granted, they got to pick apart Slovan Bratislava on Wednesday, one of the three teams in the competition with zero points. But their comprehensive 3-1 win backed up something that has been evident for a few weeks now.
Manager Diego Simeone has exactly what he needs with this squad: intensity, structure, industry and, thanks to the combination of Antoine Griezmann and Julián Álvarez, just the right amount of creativity up front. The duo scored all three goals, and Atleti completely dominated in terms of both ball recoveries (they made 61% of them) and high turnovers (81%). They’ve won 10 in a row in all competitions (scoring margin: 30-7), and while peaking in December isn’t the single greatest way to win trophies, they’re overflowing with confidence at the moment.
December is evidently Bounceback Month for Real Madrid. Firmly ensconced back in the LaLiga race after taking 12 points from five matches (and watching Barcelona wobble a bit), they re-established their Champions League credibility as well with a 3-2 win over a dynamite Atalanta team. That bumped them from 24th to 20th in the giant Champions League table and eased the tension a bit.
That said, they were pretty lucky to leave Bergamo with all three points. They took a 3-1 lead due to customary moments of brilliance — Kylian Mbappé’s lovely run in the 10th minute (assisted by Brahim Díaz), Vinícius Júnior’s advantageous strike off of a high turnover in the 56th minute and Jude Bellingham’s low screamer in the 59th — but were forced to bunker in and survive from there. Over the last 30 minutes, Atalanta attempted 10 shots worth 1.97 xG, and while Ademola Lookman brought Atalanta to within 3-2 with a low screamer of his own, the third goal never came, and Mateo Retegui missed a golden opportunity at the very end.
Mbappé enjoyed a torrid start but came off with a thigh injury (it’s evidently not considered serious). Though it still felt like almost an upset, Real Madrid got three vital points.
Sometimes, the worst thing you can do as an underdog against Bayern is score early. It wakes the German giants up. Left winger Kevin put Shakhtar Donetsk ahead 1-0 in the fifth minute in Gelsenkirchen, but Bayern charged ahead 2-1 and finished the first half with 13 shots to Shakhtar’s three. It was only 2-1, though, so Shakhtar pressed for a second goal in the second half and created some decent opportunities. But as is typically the case against Bayern, this eventually backfired. They scored in the 70th, 87th and 93rd minutes and cruised, 5-1.
This seemed like a pretty good time to play Bayern — the Bundesliga leaders are incredibly banged up at the moment and were without striker Harry Kane, goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, left back Alphonso Davies and attackers Serge Gnabry and Kingsley Coman on Tuesday. With a draw against Borussia Dortmund, a DFB-Pokal loss to Bayer Leverkusen and a sloppy weekend win over Heidenheim, their domestic form had fallen off a bit. But they still had Jamal Musiala and Michael Olise, who combined for three goals, two assists and an incredible 11 successful 1v1s on Tuesday. That was more than enough to secure their third straight Champions League win.
Olise was particularly dominant on the right side, constantly giving fits to Shakhtar leftback Mykola Matviyenko and left-center back Alaa Ghram. Oh, and his mazy one-man goal in stoppage time was one of the highlights of the week.
While BVB’s top-eight odds slipped with the defeat to Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen charged back into the conversation with a 1-0 win over Inter. Since losing 4-0 to Liverpool in Matchday 4, they’ve won two in a row and raised their top-eight odds by more than 30 percentage points on Tuesday. For as vulnerable as their defense has been at times in Bundesliga play (and at Anfield), they’ve outscored five Champions League opponents not named Liverpool by a combined 12-1.
Following a humiliating 5-1 defeat at Red Star Belgrade in Matchday 5, Stuttgart gave up an early goal at home against Young Boys, which felt pretty foreboding. But they responded vigorously, charging to a 5-1 win of their own and getting their odds of advancing back on the right side of 50%.
The last two spots in the round of 24 could come down to PSV Eindhoven (77% chance), PSG (67%), Stuttgart (60%) or Dinamo Zagreb (29%). Stuttgart gets winless Slovan Bratislava in Matchday 7 … and then PSG at home in Matchday 8.
RB Leipzig has lost six matches by a total of seven goals. Sometimes it’s just not your year.
After opening the competition with two wins, Thiago Motta’s Juventus pulled just two draws from their next three matches, matching the stolid form that has produced an incredible nine draws from 15 Serie A matches this season. (They’re unbeaten in league play but in sixth place, a difficult combination to execute.) But after Wednesday’s 2-0 win over City, ESPN BET gives them the eighth-best title odds, tied with Bayer Leverkusen.
That might be an overreaction, but Wednesday was a reminder that this team has upside. And while they rarely win, they evidently never lose.
AC Milan picked the wrong time to play Red Star Belgrade: the Serbian champs found their footing with a huge win over Stuttgart in Matchday 5 and tilted the field in their favor for large portions of Wednesday’s match in the San Siro. But they had no good ideas in the attacking third (they were 1-for-16 on open-play crosses) and with the match tied at 1-1 late, Tammy Abraham gave Milan a huge three points.
The win raised Milan’s odds of a top-eight finish to nearly 50%. Inter’s odds, meanwhile, sank a good amount.
Inter’s Simone Inzaghi is one of the most adaptable managers in the game: it’s one of the main reasons why Inter have won six trophies in three seasons and are the defending Italian champions. But sometimes the answer never comes. On Tuesday in Leverkusen, Inter offered absolutely nothing of note, attempting just six shots (none worth more than 0.11 xG and only one after the 40th minute) and suffering a meek 1-0 loss. Their defend-and-counter routine produced nothing in the counters department, and while they nearly stole a 0-0 draw, Nordi Mukiele’s 90th-minute goal took even that away from them.
Field tilt is the percentage of passes each team makes in the attacking third. Leverkusen’s field tilt: 81.5%. Inter barely even had anyone with an average positioning in Leverkusen’s half.
This was only Inter’s second loss in any competition this season, so it’s forgiven. But it still dropped their odds of a top-eight finish from 91% to 79% and dropped their title chance, per ESPN BET, under 5%. It wasn’t the most damaging loss in the world, but it wasn’t a very good performance.
They aren’t going to win this competition, but man, has it been fun watching Brest and Lille find themselves in Champions League play. Both have their distinct identities: Brest do the bunker-in-and-counter thing well and beat PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday with pure intensity and a couple of moments of brilliance from Julien Le Cardinal, while Lille comes at you with 1v1s and a high defensive line. They briefly lost control of their match with Sturm Graz on Wednesday, allowing goals on both sides of halftime, but Lille’s eventual 3-2 win kept them in the top eight for now.
It was only Salzburg. It’s important to point that out. The recent Austrian giants haven’t been in any way giant this season and have fallen out of the top 150 (and only a few spots ahead of the Houston Dynamo) in Opta’s power rankings. But after going four matches without a win in Champions League play, and three straight overall, PSG was able to build some confidence with an easy 3-0 away win on Tuesday. They weren’t able to fully put the match away until scoring twice in the last 20 minutes — and they once again underachieved slightly against their xG values (they now have just six goals from shots worth 11.2 xG) — but Salzburg never offered much of a threat, and the result was never really in doubt.
Gonçalo Ramos’ presence makes such a difference. With both his scoring and pressing abilities, Ramos seemed custom-built to lead a Luis Enrique front line, but he missed three months with an ankle injury and has only recorded 256 minutes in all competitions this season. His 30th-minute goal put PSG ahead for good, and he might have helped Bradley Barcola enjoy his first standout Champions League performance of the season. (The level of competition probably didn’t hurt.)
Barcola didn’t score, but he was ridiculously dangerous, winning 10 of 15 1v1 attempts (both of those numbers are huge) with 20 combined progressive carries and passes. He’s got 10 goals and two assists in Ligue 1 play and zero of either in the Champions League, but he did everything but score on Tuesday. And the win kept their advancement hopes alive ahead of Manchester City’s late-January visit.
Two weeks ago, Feyenoord’s odds of advancing were down to nearly 50-50 following a surprising 3-1 home loss to RB Salzburg. Then they found themselves down 3-0 against Manchester City in Matchday 5. But the late comeback and 3-3 draw lit a fire, it seems. Against a Sparta Prague team happy to exchange haymakers on Wednesday, Feyenoord put on an extraordinary finishing display, bolted to a 3-0 lead and cruised 4-1.
They’re all but guaranteed to advance now, and … man oh man, the Feyenoord home crowd just sounds different than most crowds:
We had two interesting matches between teams in the “Hoping to Advance” category on Tuesday. Celtic and Dinamo Zagreb played an intense but wary 0-0 draw, then Club Brugge continued its hot streak with a 2-1 home win over Sporting. It was Sporting’s fourth straight loss in all competitions, and their odds of a top-eight finish and a knockout-round bye have plummeted from 75% just two matchdays ago.
But while confidence may be dissipating in the weeks following manager Ruben Amorim’s departure for Manchester United, they were basically fine on Tuesday night. Brugge were just a hair more clinical and got a lovely Gustaf Nilsson-to-Hans Vanaken-to-Casper Nielsen game-winner in the 84th minute.
Brugge have now gone unbeaten in 11 straight matches in all competitions and have taken seven points from their last three Champions League matches.
Red Star have looked increasingly dangerous in this competition but evidently waited too late to get going. But with a home match against PSV Eindhoven in Matchday 7, they could still play a role in who advances to the next round.
This was easily the hardest Best XI I’ve had to come up with in this competition. We had some serious star performances.
The late strike from Tammy Abraham was a heartbreaker for Red Star as a whole, but especially Gutesa, who made a whopping eight saves and according to the postshot xG values, prevented 1.8 goals with those saves.
Backup: Lukasz Skorupski, Bologna
Two assists from four chances created, plus 13 defensive interventions. Hakimi remains maybe the best all-around fullback in the sport.
Backup: Joshua Vagnoman, Stuttgart
There still might not be a better center-back in the world when it comes to ball progression. He not only completed 123 passes (17 more than anyone else), he also completed 42 progressive passes; no one else had more than 23.
Backup: Cameron Carter-Vickers, Celtic
Find yourself a defender who can both ensure great ball progression (Flamingo’s 78 pass completions were worth 0.7 expected assists, most of any center-back in Matchday 6) and disrupt the hell out of your opponent’s attack (his 19 defensive interventions were seventh-most).
Backup: Nicolás Otamendi, Benfica
PSG has cornered the right back market. Not only do they have Hakimi, but they also loaned Mukiele to Bayer Leverkusen, where he enjoyed a breakthrough performance on Tuesday: 22 combined progressive carries and passes, 12 defensive interventions and a lovely game-winner:
Backup: Andy Robertson, Liverpool
The Stuttgart attack was in fifth gear for most of Wednesday evening, and with 27 combined progressive carries and passes and four fouls drawn (plus nine ball recoveries), Stiller was the accelerant for that. He scored, too.
Backup: Enzo Millot, Stuttgart
RBL has been snake-bitten in this competition, but Nusa still enjoyed a breakout performance on Tuesday, creating four chances, drawing three fouls and going 5-for-6 on 1v1s. He was testing Aston Villa all night.
Backup: Mahdi Camara, Brest
Bellingham can produce do-it-all numbers like no one else. In Tuesday’s vital win over Atalanta, he combined 13 defensive interventions with a goal, two chances created and a 5-for-8 performance in 1v1s. He was everywhere.
Backup: Youri Tielemans, Aston Villa
Two goals, one assist, 12 progressive carries and 6-for-11 on 1v1s. For my money, Olise was the best player of Matchday 6.
Backup: Fabian Rieder, Stuttgart
Lookman has played 17 matches in all competitions this season. He’s scored at least once in nine of them, and he’s created at least three chances in eight. He had a goal and two chances, plus a season-high 14 progressive carries, against Real Madrid on Tuesday. He’s unreal.
Backups: Antoine Griezmann, Atletico Madrid; Loïs Openda, RB Leipzig; Ferran Torres, Barcelona
Two goals, one assist, seven ball recoveries. Saka was probably the second-best player of Matchday 6. Olise and Saka were so good that somehow Stuttgart winger Fabian Rieder, with three assists, didn’t even make the Best XI.
Backup: Bradley Barcola, PSG
