PSG delivers the first blow as they score off a beautifully executed set-piece! 🤯

Bradley Barcola scores in back-to-back UCL matches 💥 pic.twitter.com/kNANV05sII

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) January 29, 2025

• Vangelis Pavlidis puts Benfica up 1-0 at Juventus.
• Almost simultaneously, Ousmane Dembélé scores for PSG to double their lead at Stuttgart.
• And then Dinamo Zagreb, the Croatian club that’s largely been written off, goes ahead against AC Milan!
• That leaves the bubble looking like this…

Lautaro Martínez etches his name in Inter history, notching his 15th UCL goal to pass Adriano for the most in club history 🌟 pic.twitter.com/KooJGc3GYY

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) January 29, 2025

• The top 8, as it stands after 15 minutes…
• Feyenoord’s equalizer at Lille bumped Lille back down in the playoff places.
• City looked open and vulnerable to Brugge counterattacks early.
• At the other end, they haven’t created much of note in the first 12 minutes.
• They’ll have plenty of possession, and they’ll probably camp out in the final third. The question, as ever, is whether they can translate that to chances, and eventually ram in a goal. A draw wouldn’t be sufficient.

Morgan Rogers 🤯The first player in UEFA Champions League history to score twice in the opening five minutes of a game in the competition 🤩

Cold 🥶 pic.twitter.com/34lRGdeDXL

— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) January 29, 2025

• Bradley Barcola puts the Parisians up 1-0 from a corner.
• That, of course, leaves PSG in excellent shape. They only need a draw.
• Morgan Rogers scores for Aston Villa against Celtic. And then he scores again, to put the hosts up 2-0 inside five minutes. (Rogers has been a revelation at Villa Park this season.)
• That result, for now, would push Villa up into the top eight.
• Inter Milan, Atlético Madrid, Lille and Bayern Munich are also up 1-0
• All 36 teams, all 18 games, all at once.
• This could be riveting. It could be totally overwhelming, and/or anticlimactic.
• Let’s find out!
• One additional detail to consider: PSG and Stuttgart, who meet head-to-head in Germany tonight, and who are level on 10 points, would both guarantee progression to the playoff round with a draw.
• So… might they be conservative, or even collude and settle for a 0-0?
• The latter scenario is unlikely, because of the opti. But, if they’re tied in the second half, don’t be surprised if they both rein things in and accept a draw.
• Before everything kicks off, a reminder that, entering the day, the bracket would look like this:
• Of course, all of that will change over the next two hours.
• You can game out your own scenarios, and follow the live table, on UEFA’s website.
• By the end of the night, we’ll know which 24 teams will advance to the knockout rounds.
• We’ll also get a rough outline of the knockout-round bracket. Whereas in past years, UEFA held a draw ahead of each round, this year teams will be seeded and drawn into a bracket that looks like this:
• The Champions League knockout-round bracket shell. (UEFA)
• In other words, by night’s end, every qualifying team will have their first opponent whittled down to two or four options. Whoever finishes 15th will play either 17th or 18th in the playoff round. Whoever finishes first will play either 15th, 16th, 17th or 18th in the Round of 16. (In the bracket above, read “/” as “or.”)
• They playoff qualifiers (teams 9-24) learn their specific opponents at a draw on Friday (6 a.m. ET).
• They’ll then play two-leg ties in mid-February. And then, with the field cut to 16, a second draw on Feb. 21 will sort the remaining teams and set the full bracket.
• The entire field will essentially be seeded in pods of two — 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th, and so on — to ensure that the top two teams can’t meet until the final, the top four can’t meet until the semifinals, and the top eight can’t meet until the quarters.

A fire broke out in one of Man City’s merchandise units just hours before their Champions League clash with Club Brugge 😳

Thankfully everyone on site was evacuated in time, and the blaze was contained 🙏 pic.twitter.com/ZPjGeruxkY

— OneFootball (@OneFootball) January 29, 2025

• First things first: In the U.S., every game is on Paramount+.
• The question: Which of the 18 should you choose?
• The best answer: All of them. Watch the “Golazo Show,” which is soccer’s best take on “NFL RedZone.” It’s whiparound coverage of every goal, big chance and more. The CBS Sports crew — unlike the Premier League and other broadcasters who’ve tried similar concepts — has done an excellent job with it. And it might as well have been designed specifically for a day like today.
• But if you’d prefer less chaos, Man City-Brugge is probably the pick. If you have a second screen, go with that and PSG-Stuttgart.
• There are literally thousands of potential outcomes today. With 18 simultaneous games and goal differential inevitably a factor, the scenarios are endless.
• So, our advice is the same as it was ahead of Matchday 1: Don’t even try to process them.
• There are a few digestible ones, of course:
• Manchester City must beat Club Brugge
• PSG must win or draw to be safe. A loss at Stuttgart, a Man City win, and results for Benfica and Sporting Clube de Portugal would eliminate the Parisians.
• However, all four of PSG, Stuttgart, Benfica and Sporting would go through, no matter their results, if Man City doesn’t win.
• Atlético Madrid and AC Milan, the two teams on 15 points, can clinch a bye to the Round of 16 with a win
• But so much is contingent on so much else that the full list of permutations is impossible to internalize. So, settle in, watch the games, and follow along; we’ll try to help you understand the implications of each goal.
• Liverpool, having already clinched a spot in the top two, will play a second-string team on this final matchday. (There is no difference between finishing first and second.)
• Elsewhere, there’s some rotation for teams already secure in the knockout-rounds, but most are playing their strongest lineups.
• A decisive evening at Manchester City begin with a fire outside the Etihad Stadium.
• It has been extinguished, authorities say nobody was harmed, and the game is set to go ahead as planned. But still, not the ideal start to the night…
• The Associated Press has more details here.

Tonight’s line-up 💪XI | Ederson, Nunes, Stones, Akanji, Gvardiol, Kovacic, Gundogan, De Bruyne (C), Bernardo, Foden, Haaland

SUBS | Ortega Moreno, Carson, Grealish, Savinho, Wright, Alleyne, O’Reilly, Lewis, McAtee#ManCity | #UCL pic.twitter.com/Spfi6dz1PT

— Manchester City (@ManCity) January 29, 2025