Champions League exit awaits Real Madrid or Man City as new playoffs round reaches dramatic finish

By Canadian Press on February 19, 2025.

MADRID (AP) — One of the past two winners of the Champions League, Real Madrid or Manchester City, is going out of the competition Wednesday before the round of 16.

Defending champion Madrid takes a 3-2 lead into the second leg at home in their knockout playoff which Man City coach Pep Guardiola suggested left his team with just a 1% chance to advance. Guardiola later backtracked on the claim, which Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti also dismissed.

Man City was shown Tuesday how to approach a daunting task by Celtic which pushed Bayern Munich to the limit after losing the first leg at home. A fortunate goal deep in stoppage time let the heavily favored Germans salvage a 1-1 draw and avoid the jeopardy of extra time, to progress 3-2 on aggregate.

Also Wednesday, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund start 3-0 up at home to, respectively, Brest and Sporting Lisbon.

A tricky week for Italian clubs against the middle classes of European soccer continues with Juventus taking a 2-1 lead to PSV Eindhoven.

AC Milan was ousted at home by Feyenoord, the fourth-place team in the Dutch league, on Tuesday hours before Atalanta was beaten 5-2 on aggregate score by Club Brugge, second in the Belgian league.

Unheralded Brugge had backed into the knockout phase taking the 24th and last qualification place in the new 36-team standings, even with a negative goal difference that was still better than Dinamo Zagreb.

Madrid and Man City meet for the fourth straight year in the knockout rounds and on each previous occasion the winner has gone on to lift the trophy.

It is no easier in the next round, however, for whichever team is left standing Wednesday at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

The new seeded, tennis-like bracket for the knockout stage now used in the expanded competition format means Madrid and Man City know their next opponent will be Atletico Madrid or Bayer Leverkusen, the fifth- and sixth-placed teams in the final standings in January.

Though Man City placed 22nd, advancing past Madrid would mean taking on its No. 11 seeding in the draw Friday at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

The top eight in the standings — Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico, Leverkusen, Lille, Aston Villa — are seeded in the draw and host second-leg games on March 11-12.

Bayern, Benfica — which eliminated Monaco — Brugge and Feyenoord advanced Tuesday to be among the unseeded teams that will host the first legs on March 4-5.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

The Associated Press

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