The competition’s new format has thrown up plenty of drama so far, even if the stakes didn’t feel quite as high as previous years’ group stages.
So there we have it. After five gruelling months and 144 games, including 18 in one night on Wednesday, the inaugural Champions League league phase is finally over.
The final matchday certainly delivered on the entertainment front, with 64 goals smashed in, including five in Liverpool’s clash with PSV in Eindhoven, six in Aston Villa’s home win over Celtic, and seven in Lille’s demolition of Feyenoord.
“It was a little bit chaotic at times because there were goals going in everywhere,” former Rangers striker Ally McCoist said on TNT Sports. “I don’t think I would be able to watch just the one game in my house, on my sofa, ever again. It was sensational.”
It’s difficult to argue with that assessment, but the journey beforehand was a real slog. We still have another 16 games to get through before the round of 16, too, with the play-off knockout round set to be played in mid-February.
Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Villa don’t have to worry about that; they are automatically through after finishing in the top eight. But a host of other huge clubs underperformed as the overall competitiveness levels on the elite European stage dropped significantly.
The argument over whether the new format can be considered an immediate success will very much depend on allegiances, and with that in mind, GOAL brings you the winners and losers from the 2024-25 league phase.
WINNER: Liverpool
Liverpool have quickly become the best team in Europe under Arne Slot, who has overseen a remarkable revolution at Anfield since replacing Jurgen Klopp as manager in the summer.
The Reds were the only side to win all of their first seven league-phase games, scoring 16 goals and conceding just two, with AC Milan, Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen all brushed aside with consummate ease.
Klopp’s ‘heavy-metal’ style of play brought Liverpool plenty of success, but Slot has taken the squad to the next level by adding more discipline, with a focus on dominating possession, smooth transitions and clever positioning.
The scary thing is, Liverpool rarely needed to get out of second gear to reach the knockout stages.
With Virgil van Dijk back to his best, Ryan Gravenberch bossing the middle of the park and the unstoppable Mohamed Salah leading the attack, Liverpool have all the tools needed to win their seventh Champions League crown.
Injuries are the only thing that could derail them, but they’ve been setting the standard at home and abroad for some time now, and should be aiming for a clean sweep of the biggest prizes.
LOSER: Man City
Liverpool might well go on to win the treble, but it’s safe to say that Manchester City have no chance of repeating their 2022-23 success. Pep Guardiola’s side have gone from being an all-conquering force to a feeble one with gaping holes that opposing teams have been able to exploit at will.
City only scraped into the top 24 in the Champions League after an unconvincing final matchday win over Club Brugge, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they come unstuck in the knockout-stage play-offs, where Real Madrid or Bayern Munich lay in wait.
Guardiola has already seen his team comfortably beaten by Sporting CP, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain, while they also blew a three-goal lead to draw at home with Feyenoord.
The injury-enforced absence of star midfielder Rodri has been a devastating blow for City from which they have still yet to recover, and no one fears them anymore.
Guardiola has been able to make some vital January signings, but they won’t change City’s European trajectory; this disjointed team are a long way off being contenders again.
WINNER: Barcelona’s attack
Hansi Flick has turned Barcelona into Europe’s great entertainers this season, deploying gung-ho tactics that are a far cry from his predecessor Xavi. This version of Barca looks for the most direct route to goal and presses high to force the opposition into mistakes, with a host of explosive, ruthless attackers always on hand to punish them.
Barca finished the league phase as top scorers with 28 goals, and Robert Lewandowski is leading the way in the race for the competition’s Golden Boot alongside Borussia Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy on nine each, while Raphinha is just one behind on eight.
With teenage sensation Lamine Yamal completing the front three, Flick’s side have looked unstoppable at times, particularly in their 4-1 home win over Bayern, which saw the Bundesliga giants completely overpowered.
The caveat is, defensively they’re all over the shop. Dortmund and Benfica scored six goals against Barca between them, and No.1 goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen has been a big miss as he continues his recovery from a serious knee injury.
That frail underbelly might prove costly in the long run, but it’s also possible that the Blaugrana could outscore everyone on their way to lifting their first Champions League title since 2015.
LOSER: Boring, boring Juventus
Juventus pulled off one of the biggest results of the league phase when downing Man City at the Allianz Stadium, and were great value for their 2-0 victory. But aside from that memorable December night, the Bianconeri have been easily the dullest team to watch in the entire competition.
Thiago Motta’s side only scored nine goals, giving them the worst attacking record in the top 23, and although they only shipped nine at the other end, that was mostly down to a staggering lack of ambition. Juve look completely stifled of creativity under Motta, whose rigid tactics and bizarre selection calls have led to a major regression.
Turkish wonderkid Kenan Yildiz has been ineffective since being moved from his favoured No.10 role out to the right flank, summer signings Teun Koopmeiners and Douglas Luiz have looked a shadow of the players they were at Atalanta and Villa, respectively, and Dusan Vlahovic has cut an all-too isolated figure upfront.
A 2-0 final matchday loss at home to Benfica summed up everything wrong with this Juve side right now; they certainly won’t be in the mix for Champions League glory come May, and Motta could well be gone long before then.
WINNERS: Brest
Brest qualified for the Champions League for the first time in their history last season, capping a remarkable rise to prominence for a club that fell into France’s amateur leagues in 2000 and took 19 years to win promotion back into Ligue 1.
As such, no one expected them to pull up any trees on Europe’s biggest stage, but they hit the ground running with a 2-1 win over Sturm Graz before thumping Red Bull Salzburg 4-0 in Austria, and the buzz around Eric Roy’s side only grew from there.
Hard-fought wins over Sparta Prague and PSV were also recorded alongside an impressive 1-1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen as Brest put themselves in contention for an automatic last-16 qualifying spot. Unfortunately, back-to-back defeats against Shakhtar Donestk and Real Madrid brought them crashing back down to earth, but Brest still pulled off a miracle by making the play-offs.
What Roy and his players have achieved to this point is remarkable considering the club’s financial limitations, an ongoing injury crisis and the fact that they have been playing their ‘home’ matches in Guingamp rather than at Stade Francis-Le Ble.
Brest will still be underdogs to reach the next stage, but they thrive on that status.
LOSER: RB Leipzig
RB Leipzig were a Pot One team for the league-phase draw after finishing fourth in the Bundesliga and reaching the Champions League round of 16 in 2023-24, with some even going as far as to label Marco Rose’s side as dark horses for the trophy.
It was a major shock, then, when Leipzig lost their first six European games to become one of the first clubs eliminated from the competition in the new format.
In fairness, that run did include narrow defeats to Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Liverpool and Inter, but Leipzig were also beaten 3-1 away at Celtic, and poor defending led to their downfall at home to Aston Villa. For a team with Slovenian hot-shot Benjamin Sesko, Belgian tyro Lois Openda and Dutch schemer Xavi Simons in attack, they should have fared far better.
They did save some face with a 2-1 win over Sporting CP, but were then beaten 1-0 by Sturm Graz as they bowed out in humiliating fashion. There is no escaping the fact this was a disastrous Champions League campaign for Leipzig, who seem to have stagnated under Rose in recent months.
WINNER: Unai Emery
Unai Emery performed a miracle by guiding Aston Villa to Champions League qualification for the first time since 1983, but they have not just been content to make up the numbers.
Villa breezed into the last-16 with five wins from their eight league-phase matches, including a memorable home triumph over Bayern Munich that saw 21-year-old sensation Jhon Duran earn instant hero status with a superb lofted winner from 30 yards out.
Villa have slipped to eighth in the Premier League, which was to be expected given their lack of overall squad depth, but Emery has always been a manager who prioritises European commitments.
The four-time Europa League winner defied the odds at Sevilla and Villarreal, the latter of whom also reached the Champions League semi-finals on his watch, and he can do so again with the Villans.
It is still too premature to call Villa ‘dark horses’, but no team will fancy playing them at Villa Park. Don’t be surprised if Emery’s troops enjoy a run into the latter stages, though the imminent loss of wildcard forward Duran could leave them light upfront, with the youngster set to complete a shock move to Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr before the winter transfer deadline.
LOSER: The minnows
Brest may have provided the feel-good story of the 2024-25 Champions League season so far, but they were the only minnows to punch above their weight in the league phase.
Predictably, Sturm Graz and Red Star finished 29th and 30th respectively on just six points apiece, Red Bull Salzburg amassed four points to Sparta Prague’s three, while bottom two clubs Slovan Bratislava and Young Boys both lost all of their eight matches.
These are all teams used to fighting for silverware in their domestic competitions, but the step up to Champions League level once again proved too great. Although UEFA’s new format brought financial benefits as a result of more matches against the elite clubs, supporters had very little to cheer about.
Humiliating results were commonplace, from Dinamo Zagreb’s 9-2 mauling at Bayern to Young Boys’ chastening 6-1 home defeat against Atalanta. When there were four-team groups, there was always an outside chance of an upset if the draw was kind, but the minnows’ knockout stage hopes are now slimmer than ever, with the quality of the competition undeniably diluted by the unnecessary expansion to 36 teams.
WINNERS: Mauricio Pochettino & the USMNT
The United States men’s national team has already broken its record for the most player starts in a single season of the Champions League, with AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic leading a remarkable American charge. The former Chelsea star racked up five goal contributions in the league phase to help the Rossoneri secure a play-off berth, with fellow countryman Yunus Musah also impressing for the Italian giants.
Meanwhile, Weston McKennie and Tim Weah each played key roles for a Juventus side that narrowly missed out on automatic qualification for the round of 16, Malik Tillman and Ricardo Pepi shared five goals between them for PSV as they also made the top 24, and Celtic made the play-offs in no small part thanks to Auston Trusty and Cameron Carter-Vickers’ superb efforts in defence.
Gio Reyna hasn’t featured as prominently in the Champions League as his international team-mates, making just two starts for Borussia Dortmund, but he is likely to get more chances to shine as last season’s finalists.
The U.S. now boasts a host of star names that are leaving a mark in club’s football’s most prestigious competition, which bodes well for the national team’s development ahead of the 2026 World Cup in North America.
LOSERS: UEFA
UEFA’s ‘Swiss Model’ league phase has completely divided opinion. Some believe it’s led to more excitement; after all, we’ve been treated to thrilling spectacles like Barcelona’s 5-4 comeback win over Benfica and PSG’s 4-2 victory over Man City, and 16 of the 18 games on the final matchday still had something riding on them.
But not everyone has had the wool pulled over their eyes. The 96-game group stage wasn’t nearly as much of a slog as this 144-game league one, which ended with only 12 teams being eliminated instead of 16.
The stakes have been lowered to the point where the big clubs are far too protected. The likes of Bayern, Real Madrid, City and Juventus were all happy to accept play-off spots instead of going all out for automatic qualification, and there was no sense of real jeopardy in any of the blockbuster contests.
It’s impossible to blame those clubs for taking it easy either; the fixture list was already congested enough without all of these extra matches. Player welfare was not taken into account at all by UEFA when they gave the green light for this unnecessary expansion, and nor was the competition’s soul – which has been all but stripped away in pursuit of more money.
