You actually do have at hand it to Manchester Metropolis. They aren’t the one large staff that’s put their coronary heart and soul into making this new Champions League format vaguely attention-grabbing, however they’ve been essentially the most firmly dedicated to the bit.
And so they remained so till nearly the final second. Actual Madrid and Bayern Munich misplaced their nerve a while in the past and made certain of play-off spots. Even PSG didn’t maintain course till the very finish.
Man Metropolis, although. They had been true heroes of the format. They dug themselves deeper and deeper till the ultimate half of the ultimate sport earlier than staging their blushes-sparing escape act.
The specifics of a sport towards a energetic Membership Brugge facet – who additionally snuck into the play-off spherical regardless of this defeat – are incidental actually. This was a big-picture form of evening, one which required protecting tabs on 18 simultaneous video games in a single competitors which even we, as harsh critics of this format, needed to concede introduced a form of dizzying and complicated buzz.
Was it really good? Don’t actually know. But it surely was actually totally different. For all of the permutations elsewhere, Metropolis really had a comparatively easy activity. Win.
This clearly introduced a problem to a staff that has been so decided to stay in attention-grabbing occasions this season. They rose to that problem magnificently with a listless first half that didn’t precisely scream ‘must-win’ and ended with Matheus Nunes confirming he’s no right-back because the Belgians took a shock lead into the break.
Metropolis, it have to be acknowledged, had been much better within the second half. They needed to be, they may hardly fail to be, however higher they had been.
Mateo Kovacic ran unopposed by a number of acres of turf the place a Membership Brugge midfield must have been earlier than ending neatly from the sting of the field to deliver Metropolis stage, and Josko Gvardiol continued his entertainingly sudden but seemingly inexorable rise to turn out to be Metropolis’s most dependable attacking outlet by forcing an personal aim.
When Savinho added a 3rd you sensed that even Metropolis couldn’t make a bollocks of it from right here, and so it proved.
However Metropolis haven’t completed saving the Champions League from itself.
We’re nonetheless not fairly certain why there’s a draw for the play-off spherical in any respect fairly than it simply being ninth v twenty fourth, tenth v twenty third and so forth. It’s to not permit UEFA to fiddle it the place want be to forestall groups from the identical nation taking part in one another, and even groups who’ve already performed one another. We’ve checked, and each these issues completely are allowed to occur within the punishment spherical.
QUIZ: Are you able to identify the 36 Champions League groups within the league section?
It might be so simple as UEFA simply actually, actually liking a giant draw occasion with all little plastic footballs and massive goldfish bowls and diverse legends from the 90s and noughties standing awkwardly for a number of minutes as 4 individuals try to carry a dialog in what’s, at greatest, a second language for all of them.
And you understand what? Honest sufficient.
However what this draw does have is pairing. So whereas it’s not so simple as ninth v twenty fourth, it is so simple as ninth and tenth being drawn towards twenty third and twenty fourth. Which implies we now know which part of the draw Metropolis discover themselves in.
Magnificently – albeit very irritatingly if you wish to keep on complaining about this format which we do as a result of it’s nonetheless crap irrespective of how fortunate UEFA get – the 2 seeds in Metropolis’s part of the draw are… Actual Madrid and Bayern Munich. And you’ll throw one other former European champion into the combo as effectively, as a result of Celtic are the opposite unseeded staff. Simply extremely good nonsense.
Different notable pairings earlier than the draw are the actual fact PSG will certainly play French opposition in both Monaco or Brest, whereas there’s the potential of Milan going through Juventus.
The opposite impact of UEFA’s choice to carry a paired draw for the play-offs after which one other to lock within the last last-16 bracket is that they’ve created absolutely the primary league desk in recorded historical past the place there’s actually not one single solitary benefit to ending first fairly than second.
Historically, fairly a major dividing line. However not right here. Arne Slot had twigged it, admitting he’d not been certain initially however had accurately in the long run surmised that with Liverpool assured to complete second at worst it made not one jot of tangible distinction – besides to the ol’ coefficient in fact – what occurred to them of their last sport.
They may nonetheless be on the mercy of the draw to find which facet of the draw they fall upon, however shall be certain of avoiding their fellow top-two finisher till the ultimate.
Because it was, Liverpool duly misplaced to PSV with a much-changed staff through which the beginning XI boasted a mean squad variety of 41 regardless of the absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold and the presence of Wataru Endo letting the facet down massively in midfield. After which nonetheless ended up prime anyway.
All of it fairly felt prefer it fell completely into UEFA’s palms. An evening of superficially excessive drama, however one which ended with not one main casualty.