We’re officially in the back half of the league phase of Champions League play as every team has now played five matches. There are some surprises as Paris Saint-Germain and RB Leipzig wouldn’t advance to the next stage of the tournament as things stand, and Manchester City’s spiral is also something to behold.
City have gone winless in their last two UCL matches allowing seven goals, but the latest 3-3 draw with Feyenoord was a historic one as they became the first team in Champions League history to fail to win a match after leading for 75 minutes or more. Americans also shined with Malik Tillman and Ricardo Pepi pushing PSV to an important victory. With his brace, Tillman became the first U.S. international with two goals in a Champions League game.
Other contenders like Inter, Barcelona and Arsenal got the job done but let’s take a look at how the rest of the teams are stacking up in Power Rankings:
| Rank | Team | Change | Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | — | It’s a charmed life for Arne Slot, even Mohamed Salah missing a penalty where he doesn’t hit the target isn’t enough to stop Liverpool from defeating Real Madrid. |
| 2 | Barcelona | — | Barcelona show up, score goals and then they leave with victories. They’re doing enough to show that they’re UCL contenders and Robert Lewandowski joined Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as the only players to score 100 or more Champions League goals. |
| 3 | Inter | — | It’s not pretty but Inter continuously get the job done. When other top teams are struggling, they’re pulling out 1-0 wins and rising up the table. |
| 4 | Arsenal | +1 | Dispatching Sporting CP with ease, Arsenal are showing that they need to be considered among the top contenders for a Champions League title at this stage. |
| 5 | Atalanta | +1 | Conceding their first goal of this Champions League campaign, Atalanta took that personally and proceeded to score six goals with Mateo Retegui and Charles De Ketelaere scoring braces each. |
| 6 | Bayer Leverkusen | +5 | Florian Wirtz is showing why he’s one of the top young players in the world with a brace and an assist as Leverkusen bounced back from getting trounced by Liverpool in a big way. |
| 7 | Lille | +2 | Goals are coming from everywhere for Lille these days, this time it was Ngal Ayel Mukau who delivered a brace from midfield to keep Lille’s good run in the competition going. |
| 8 | Bayern Munich | +2 | Bayern rode a first-half goal to a clean sheet and a victory over Paris Saint-Germain. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s also better than dropping points. |
| 9 | Monaco | -2 | Fighting back down a man to take a point off of Benfica, Monaco are among the French sides ensuring that even with PSG’s struggles, there will be plenty of French representation in the knockout stages. |
| 10 | Sporting Club Lisbon | -2 | Playing their first Champions League match without Ruben Amorim, things didn’t go well for Sporting CP, but they’re still well-placed to make it to the next stage of the competition. |
| 11 | Manchester City | -7 | Wow. It’s crisis mode in Manchester. Becoming the fist team to fail to win a Champions League match after leading by three goals in the 75th minute, there isn’t much going right for City at this stage as they’re now winless in six matches in all competitions. |
| 12 | Milan | +2 | At this point, can Christian Pulisic be cloned? The American was everywhere for Milan by scoring yet again, but Milan’s defense tried to throw the match away. |
| 13 | Borussia Dortmund | +3 | Taking care of business away from home in Europe isn’t an easy task, but Dortmund went into Croatia and picked up yet another win in UCL play. A job well done. |
| 14 | Atletico Madrid | +2 | It’s been a while since Atleti pulled out an absolute beatdown of a team. Julian Alvarez netted a brace but they still need much more to establish themselves as UCL contenders. |
| 15 | Real Madrid | -3 | Kylian Mbappe returned to his favored left hand side facing Liverpool and responded by missing a penalty. Along with City, Los Blancos are tumbling down the table and need to right the ship ad get back to health. |
| 16 | Aston Villa | -3 | Villa had a late goal ruled out, but they didn’t play a game that they deserved to win. |
| 17 | Benfica | +4 | A late winner in Monaco is a massive result for Benfica to get their Champions League campaign back on track. |
| 18 | Brest | -3 | Taking an away trip to Barcelona and losing 3-0 happens to the best teams in the world, so it’ll be about how they respond to this. |
| 19 | Juventus | -1 | Getting a point is good, but needing to be bailed out by the officials to do it isn’t. Nothing about this UCL campaign has been pretty for Juventus but they’ll take what they can get. |
| 20 | PSV | — | A club riding a roller coaster, it’s tough to figure out what the real PSV is. They fought back for a draw against Shakhtar Donetsk via Malik Tillman and Ricardo Pepi but they needed help from a red card to do it. |
| 21 | Celtic | -2 | Playing at home against a team like Brugge, you need all three points and Celtic couldn’t secure that. |
| 22 | Paris Saint-Germain | — | Oh no. Still outside of the top 24 in the table, this is the point where panic should begin to set in for Luis Enrique and PSG. |
| 23 | Club Brugge | +2 | Brugge will have wanted all three points in Scotland, but a draw away does at least keep them in the top 24 teams. |
| 24 | Dinamo Zagreb | -1 | Hosting Dortmund is a tough task and while Zagreb kept things from getitng out of hand, they weren’t able to secure a point when it mattered. |
| 25 | VfB Stuttgart | -1 | With a strong chance to move above struggling teams in an away trip to Serbia, Stuttgart instead conceded five goals. Not great. |
| 26 | Girona | — | Ivan Martin may have had the miss of the tournament so far with his 0.93 xG shot not finding the net. Girona’s maiden voyage in UCL could be coming to an end soon. |
| 27 | Feyenoord | — | Wow, fighting back from being 3-0 down to City after the 75th minute is quite a result as Feyenoord are slowly finding their footing. |
| 28 | Crvena zvezda | +6 | What a victory over Stuttgart. Silas Mvumpa scored and assisted another goal being on loan from the German side and everyone got involved in their first UCL victory in more than five years. |
| 29 | Sparta Praha | -1 | It was a fun start to UCL going undefeated in their first two matches. It hasn’t been much fun since. |
| 30 | SK Sturm Graz | +5 | It probably should’ve been a draw against Girona but Sturm Graz will be happy to secure their first victory of the campaign. |
| 31 | Shakhtar Donetsk | -1 | Not able to see out a two goal lead after going down a man, allowing two stoppage time goals for a loss is a damaging result for the Ukranian side. |
| 32 | RB Leipzig | -3 | One of the big teams on notice, RB Leipzig are still winless through five matches in the league phase. What is going on? |
| 33 | RB Salzburg | -2 | Another day, another heavy defeat for the Austrian side. |
| 34 | Bologna | -2 | One day Bologna will kick their UCL campain into gear, but today wasn’t that day. |
| 35 | Young Boys | -2 | They scored a goal at least. That was fun but conceding six to Atalanta wasn’t. |
| 36 | Slovan Bratislava | — | They scored a few goals but still couldn’t clean up things defensively leading to another loss. |
