A pivotal set of fixtures beckon as we reach the halfway point of the Champions League’s new-look league phase.
Matchweek four is peppered with games pitting some of the best European sides against each other as some try to maintain good starts and others attempt to climb the bumper 36-team table in search of places in next year’s knockout rounds. Liverpool, Real Madrid and Manchester City are all in action tonight, with Arsenal, Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain taking to the field tomorrow.
Using The Athletic’s projections — powered by Opta data — we look at five matches that could provide the next shift of momentum as the battle for qualification gets real.
GO DEEPER
Champions League projections 2024-25: Each team’s probability of qualifying for knockouts
Liverpool vs Bayer Leverkusen (Tuesday, 8pm GMT/3pm ET)
Currently top of our chart for projected points (18), Liverpool face potentially their stiffest test of the league phase when they host reigning German Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen, managed by former Anfield favourite Xabi Alonso.
Liverpool’s 1-0 away win over another German side, RB Leipzig, last time out lifted their chances of direct round-of-16 qualification, via a top-eight finish, to 79 per cent, only behind Manchester City’s 81 per cent. Their only loss so far this season did come at Anfield (1-0 to Nottingham Forest in the Premier League in mid-September), though another seemed possible over the weekend when Ferdi Kadioglu gave Brighton & Hove Albion a 1-0 half-time lead. Second-half strikes from Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah completed a comeback, however, and added to the belief that Arne Slot can land silverware in his first season at the club.
GO DEEPER
Arne Slot feels the power of Anfield as Liverpool begin to eye up a genuine title challenge
Alonso’s team drew 1-1 away to surprise package Brest in their previous fixture to remain unbeaten in the 2024-25 Champions League with seven points. While their attack, led by the talented Florian Wirtz and Victor Boniface, is firing again, 15 goals conceded in their nine Bundesliga matches suggests their defence can be got at. Two of Leverkusen’s remaining four league-phase games after this one are at home against struggling duo Red Bull Salzburg and Sparta Prague, so a point tonight would be valuable for them.
Leverkusen boss Alonso returns to old haunt Anfield tonight (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Liverpool’s remaining games: Real Madrid (H), Girona (A), Lille (H), PSV Eindhoven (A)
Leverkusen’s remaining games: Red Bull Salzburg (H), Inter Milan (H), Atletico Madrid (A), Sparta Prague (H)
Sporting Lisbon vs Manchester City (Tuesday, 8pm GMT/3pm ET)
What will be Ruben Amorim’s final home game in charge of Sporting Lisbon promises to be an emotionally charged affair. The Manchester United job is already his, but this match could make for a fitting introduction to Mancunian football on the grandest of all stages. It also comes at an opportune time, with City facing an injury crisis and with defensive issues to fix.
GO DEEPER
Champions League projections 2024-25: Each team’s probability of qualifying for knockouts
Both teams have seven points, and although Sporting welcome Arsenal in the next round of games at the end of the month, their subsequent fixtures look less daunting than City’s.
Can Amorim please both his current and future employers by beating City? (Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)
The reigning Portuguese champions’ chances of qualifying directly for the round of 16 have risen to 39 per cent heading into this match, up from 26 per cent pre-tournament, with their likelihood of being knocked out of Europe in the league phase by finishing 25th or below falling from 17 per cent in the summer to just two per cent.
Sporting’s only win in four meetings with City came in the first leg of a Europa League round-of-16 tie in March 2012, 1-0 at home. They then lost 3-2 to Roberto Mancini’s side in Manchester, so went through via the now-defunct away goals rule.
Sporting’s remaining games: Arsenal (H), Club Bruges (A), RB Leipzig (A), Bologna (H)
City’s remaining games: Feyenoord (H), Juventus (A), Paris Saint-Germain (A), Club Bruges (H)
Real Madrid vs AC Milan (Tuesday, 8pm GMT/3pm ET)
Two of the Champions League’s most iconic clubs meet in the Spanish capital — both hoping to put recent setbacks behind them.
Madrid did not get a chance over the weekend to get themselves back into the groove after their 4-0 Clasico defeat to Barcelona, with their La Liga fixture away to Valencia being postponed due to the catastrophic floods in the area. Meanwhile, Milan’s middling start to Serie A has them in seventh with five wins from 10 games, while their Champions League journey began with defeats to Liverpool and Leverkusen, before a vital 3-1 home win against Club Bruges. They have also seen a league game — in Bologna last month — postponed due to extreme weather conditions.
Madrid leaned on the Bernabeu faithful to engineer a 5-2 comeback win, from two down at half-time, against Borussia Dortmund on matchday three. The competition’s defending champions, their season simply has not taken off so far, but a victory against Milan could be the catalyst they need, with visits to Liverpool and 2023-24 Europa League winners Atalanta up next.
Madrid-Milan is a fixture laden with history and heritage (Christophe Simon/AFP via Getty Images)
Milan’s two losses in Europe have left them with just a seven per cent chance of finishing in the top eight, according to our projections. A surprise win tonight would see that figure rise, as their four remaining matches are against teams who have taken just seven of the 36 available points so far.
Madrid’s remaining games: Liverpool (A), Atalanta (A), Red Bull Salzburg (H), Brest (A)
Milan’s remaining games: Slovan Bratislava (A), Red Star Belgrade (H), Girona (H), Dinamo Zagreb (A)
Paris Saint-Germain vs Atletico Madrid (Wednesday, 8pm GMT/3pm ET)
One of the quirks of the Champions League’s new format is the opportunity to get excited about a match-up between teams currently 19th and 27th in the table.
PSG and Atletico have no room for error when they meet at the Parc des Princes. The Parisians, handed the toughest fixture list in the tournament, per Opta, have got a win, a draw and a loss from their first three games in contrast to a Ligue 1 record of eight wins and two draws from 10 matches. Having been handed a healthy 27 per cent chance of finishing in the top eight pre-tournament, the 2-0 defeat at Arsenal and 1-1 with visitors PSV Eindhoven have seen that drop to just 11 per cent.
The French champions face a very real possibility of league-phase elimination (18 per cent) heading into this match, given they still have to play Bayern Munich (away) and Manchester City. This feels like a pivotal night for Luis Enrique’s side.
Simeone has not coaxed strong defensive performances from his team thus far (Florencia Tan Jun/Getty Images)
For a second year running, Atletico look defensively vulnerable in Europe. They have conceded eight goals in their three matches, including a 4-0 hammering at Benfica, despite having let in just seven in 12 La Liga games. The 3-1 defeat to Lille last time out has left them teetering a little, but they still have a 64 per cent chance of making the play-off round that will decide eight of the last 16 places thanks to some favourable fixtures.
PSG’s remaining games: Bayern Munich (A), Red Bull Salzburg (A), Manchester City (H), Stuttgart (A)
Atletico’s remaining games: Sparta Prague (A), Slovan Bratislava (H), Bayer Leverkusen (H), Red Bull Salzburg (A)
Inter Milan vs Arsenal (Wednesday, 8pm GMT/3pm ET)
Anyone for a high-profile 0-0 draw? Inter and Arsenal, two of the five clubs yet to concede a goal in this season’s Champions League, meet at San Siro tomorrow, having scored just eight times from their six combined games while earning seven points each.
The early optimism around Arsenal’s season has faded with a three-match winless run in the Premier League that’s dropped them to fifth, seven points behind leaders Liverpool already after 10 games. During that run they have edged past Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0 at home in the Champions League while also defeating Preston North End of the second-tier Championship 3-0 in the Carabao Cup.
This match starts a run of three tricky European fixtures, with a trip to Sporting and a home match against Monaco to follow — two more sides on seven points after three games — before a straightforward (on paper at least) end to the league phase. But despite the gloom at the club currently, our projections have Arsenal as the eighth-most-likely side to progress straight to the round of 16.
Inter’s domestic aspirations for back-to-back titles seem to be on track as they are just a point behind leaders Napoli after 11 matches, with a better goal difference. In Europe, a 1-0 away win over Young Boys on matchday three meant their chances of league-stage elimination dropped to less than one per cent, having been at four to start the tournament. Simone Inzaghi’s team also have a 56 per cent chance of finishing in the top eight, like Arsenal.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan takes on former side Arsenal tomorrow (Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images)
These two clubs have only met competitively twice, both in the group stage of the 2003-04 Champions League. Obafemi Martins made one and scored another as Inter won 3-0 at Highbury, before Thierry Henry led a memorable 5-1 thrashing with two goals and two assists in the reverse fixture two months later.
Inter’s remaining games: RB Leipzig (H), Bayer Leverkusen (A), Sparta Prague (A), Monaco (H)
Arsenal’s remaining games: Sporting Lisbon (A), Monaco (H), Dinamo Zagreb (H), Girona (A)
Best of the rest
Fresh from slaying both the Madrid giants back to back on matchdays two and three, France’s Lille host another of the big guns tonight in Juventus, who have finally remembered how to score — it’s now eight goals in three Serie A matches after only 11 in the previous eight going back to the start of the season. Both are on six points and have a 19 per cent chance of finishing in the top eight, which makes this a fascinating match.
Not far behind those two in the table are Stuttgart and Italian visitors Atalanta. The Germans were handed the sixth easiest set of fixtures according to Opta and a 1-0 away win over Juventus last time out saw them successfully get away from arguably their toughest assignment of the league phase. Atalanta, meanwhile, are the only team outside the competition’s current top 10 yet to concede. They probably need the win tomorrow just a bit more than Stuttgart do, with matches against Real Madrid and Barcelona to come in their final four.
Aston Villa will look to stay top of the table when they visit Club Bruges, with the Belgians looking to reduce their grim-looking 77 per cent chance of league-phase elimination — according to our projections.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
