Today's Lineup

• A new era in the Champions League 🏆

• League Standings & Results

• Big Games Ahead

• Team of the Tournament (so far)

• Memes 😂

A new era in the Champions League 🏆

2024/25 marks a new era for the most prestigious club football tournament in the world.

The UEFA Champions League has changed. Whether for better or worse, that still needs to be decided.

But in case you missed it, instead of teams playing in 8 groups against 3 other teams home and away, now each team plays 8 matches (4 home and 4 away) against 8 different opponents in a league format.

It was all very confusing at first but slowly starts to make sense the more you follow the matches. If you’re still confused, watch this video from UEFA explaining the dawn of the new era with none other than Zlatan himself.

With the first 4 matches behind us, we are halfway through the group league stage. Let’s see what happened.

League Standings & Results

The biggest upset
Manchester City scored 9 goals in their first 3 games without conceding any. Nothing unusual there. In steps Sporting CP and crush the English champions 4-1! Winning against Man City is one thing, beating them 4-1 is another and that is why we chose this result as the biggest upset.

Freescoring Barcelona
Barcelona surprisingly lost their first match to Monaco 2-1, but then beat Young Boys 5-0, Bayern Munich 4-1 and Crvena Zvezda 5-2 in their subsequent matches.

Big Teams in the Bottom Half?
Bayern, Milan, Real Madrid, PSG, Atletico… teams normally expected to go far in the tournament and possibly even win the whole thing. Currently sitting in the bottom half of the table. What’s going on? Luckily they still have a few games left to secure their spots in the next round.

Big Games Ahead

• Matchday 5 (26 Nov 2024) - Bayern Munich vs PSG

• Matchday 5 (26 Nov 2024) - Sporting vs Arsenal

• Matchday 5 (27 Nov 2024) - Liverpool vs Real Madrid

• Matchday 6 (11 Dec 2024) - B. Dortmund vs Barcelona

• Matchday 6 (11 Dec 2024) - Juventus vs Manchester City

• Matchday 7 (22 Jan 2025) - PSG vs Manchester City

Team of the Tournament (so far)

GK: Yann Sommer (Inter)
Easiest pick of the bunch. Sommer has played 4 games and kept 4 clean sheets. Inter hasn’t conceded a single goal so far this season in the Champions League and they’ve played big teams such as Arsenal and Manchester City.

DEF: Ibrahima Konaté (Liverpool)
Top of the table Liverpool have won all 4 of their games and even though their Attack has been brilliant, their Defence are looking just as solid. Konaté has played all but 2 minutes of those matches, keeping 3 clean sheets, recovering an impressive 25 balls (more than any other Liverpool defender) and even getting on the scoreboard himself with 1 goal.

DEF: Thilo Kehrer (Monaco)
Monaco has surprised everyone and impressively sits 3rd in the league. Kehrer is an important cog in their defence. He was the Man of the Match in their last match and was also included in UEFA’s Team of the Week for matchday 4. Kehrer has also contributed 1 goal and 1 assist.

DEF: Zeno Debast (Sporting)
Sporting’s 21-year-old defender has helped Sporting maintain an unbeaten start to the Champions League and not only helped them defensively but also added 1 goal and 1 assist going forward.

MID: Éderson (Atalanta)
Atalanta, strangely enough, is also still unbeaten so far in this season’s Champions League. This is partly because of the Brazilian midfielder Éderson. He was named Man of the Match in 2 of their 4 games (including the match against Arsenal).

MID: Hakan Çalhanoğlu (Inter)
A key figure in Inter’s midfield. Çalhanoğlu has only played 3 matches but has scored 2 goals for the team and also earned the Man of the Match Award in Inter’s crucial victory against Arsenal.

MID: Florian Wirtz (Leverkusen)
UEFA’s Player of the Week in Matchday 1. Man of the Match in 3 of the 4 matches. The German wonderkid is getting better and better each week!

MID: Raphinha (Barcelona)
The Champions League’s top Goal Contributor (Goals + Assists) with 5 Goals and 3 Assists. Raphinha has simply been on fire and is dangerous going forward. He has been named the Man of the Match on 2 occasions including Barca’s 4-1 victory over Bayern.

FWD: Abdallah Sima (Brest)
French team Brest (Stade Brestois 29) is 4th in the league after a remarkable start to the campaign. Sima was pivotal to their impressive start with 3 goals in 3 games as well as 2 Man of the Match Performances.

FWD: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
Probably the most famous name in this team, Salah has been doing what Salah does best, play brilliant football! He has helped Liverpool to the top of the table with 4 goal assists, more than any other player.

FWD: Viktor Gyökeres (Sporting CP)
A hattrick against Manchester City. UEFA’s Matchday 4 Player of the Week. Top of the Top Goalscorers list with 5 goals. 3 Man of the Match Awards. Viktor Gyökeres has been flying high! We have also chosen him as our Player of the Tournament (so far). Let’s see if he can continue delivering high-class performances.

Memes 😂

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