Man City Rallies to Beat Club Brugge and Advance in Champions League. PSG Also Wins and Stays in

Savinho (R) of Manchester City in action against Joaquin Seys of Brugge during the UEFA Champions League match between Manchester City and Club Brugge in Manchester, Britain, 29 January 2025. EPA/ADAM VAUGHAN
Savinho (R) of Manchester City in action against Joaquin Seys of Brugge during the UEFA Champions League match between Manchester City and Club Brugge in Manchester, Britain, 29 January 2025. EPA/ADAM VAUGHAN
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Man City Rallies to Beat Club Brugge and Advance in Champions League. PSG Also Wins and Stays in

Savinho (R) of Manchester City in action against Joaquin Seys of Brugge during the UEFA Champions League match between Manchester City and Club Brugge in Manchester, Britain, 29 January 2025. EPA/ADAM VAUGHAN
Savinho (R) of Manchester City in action against Joaquin Seys of Brugge during the UEFA Champions League match between Manchester City and Club Brugge in Manchester, Britain, 29 January 2025. EPA/ADAM VAUGHAN

Manchester City stayed in the Champions League, barely. Paris Saint-Germain saved its elite status in style.
Both had risked embarrassing exits before winning on Wednesday, grateful to be among the 24 teams in the knockout stage. In the new playoffs-round draw Friday, they will also find defending champion Real Madrid or Bayern Munich who finished in mid-table after the 36-team standings was finalized.
City flirted with a disaster before rallying to beat Club Brugge 3-1 in a must-win game. Trailing 1-0 at halftime, and then sitting 26th in the live standings, the 2023 title-winner was sparked by substitute Savinho to avoid elimination, the Associated Press reported.
“In the second half we let our souls and hearts free,” said City manager Pep Guardiola, who had an anguished evening on the sidelines and was shown a yellow card.
City finished 22nd but relief turns to the realization that its playoff round opponent will be either Madrid or Bayern, which slotted into the bracket possibilities in, respectively, 11th and 12th place.
PSG started play in 22nd before cruising to a 4-1 win at Stuttgart, fired by Ousmane Dembélé's hat trick, that eliminated the German club.
The French champion impressed again after a crucial 4-2 comeback win over Man City one week ago, and rose to 15th place. Still, that puts PSG on a path to meet either Liverpool or Barcelona in the round of 16 in March if it wins an all-French playoff against either Monaco or Brest.
Liverpool topped the standings despite a 3-2 loss with a weakened team at PSV Eindhoven, and Barcelona ended runner-up after a 2-2 draw with Atalanta.
Only the top eight teams go direct to the round of 16 and that excludes Madrid, which won 3-0 at Brest, and Bayern, a 3-1 winner against Slovan Bratislava.
Inter Milan, Arsenal and Atletico Madrid sealed top-eight finishes as expected with low-key wins. Inter beat Monaco 3-0, Arsenal won 2-1 at Girona and Atletico won 4-1 at Salzburg, which had a woeful campaign.
Bayer Leverkusen, Lille — which thrashed Feyenoord 6-1 — and Aston Villa completed the top eight.
Stuttgart dropped to 26th place and was eliminated along with Dinamo Zagreb, despite its 2-1 win over AC Milan whose United States playmaker Christian Pulisic had leveled the game. Milan can face Juventus in the playoffs round.
Brugge took the 24th qualification place ahead of Dinamo on the tiebreaker of goal difference.
An unprecedented Champions League night of 18 games playing at the same time — completing the new 144-game opening phase format – ended with no shock exits though final standings that defied expectations.
Three English teams finished in the top eight but not Man City.
Two Spanish teams finished in the top eight but not Real Madrid.
The one German team in the top eight is not Bayern, and the one French team is not PSG.
Those four wealthy powers of European soccer found the new eight-game format trickier than expected. They now have the burden of two extra games on back-to-back midweeks in February to earn round of 16 places that were routine in the old group-stage format.
Villa joined Liverpool and Arsenal in the top eight by beating Celtic 4-2 to rise to 16 points — the cut that meant avoiding the playoffs.
UEFA’s preseason prediction of eight points to enter the knockout phase proved far off the mark.
Dinamo got 11 points and still was eliminated, ensuring no team from eastern Europe will be in the knockout phase.
The lowest-ranked country in Friday’s playoffs round draw is Scotland, whose champion Celtic finished 21st, one place and one point above Man City.



Messi and Miami Held by New York City in MLS Opener

Lionel Messi - File/AFP
Lionel Messi - File/AFP
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Messi and Miami Held by New York City in MLS Opener

Lionel Messi - File/AFP
Lionel Messi - File/AFP

Lionel Messi and Inter Miami stumbled out of the blocks with a 2-2 home draw against New York City FC in the opening round of the new Major League Soccer season on Saturday.

Miami, who broke the regular season points record last year before crashing out in the first round of the playoffs, played the bulk of the match with 10 men after Argentine defender Tomas Aviles was sent off.

Messi provided the assists for both Miami's goals including the leveler which came in the 10th minute of stoppage time, AFP reported.

With new head coach Javier Mascherano in charge for the first time in MLS, having replaced fellow Argentine Gerardo Martino, Miami featured several new faces but looked disjointed and lacking shape for most of the encounter.

The night began perfectly for Miami who took the lead in the fifth minute after Messi played a corner deep to Jordi Alba who returned a pinpoint diagonal pass which the World Cup winner slipped across to Aviles who slotted home.

But then things started to go wrong for the MLS Cup favourites.

One of the off-season arrivals, forward Fafa Picault, had to go off in the 10th minute after going down with what appeared to be a muscle injury.

Then, 13 minutes later, the momentum of the game shifted significantly towards New York when Aviles brought down Alonso Martinez on the edge of the box and received a straight red card.

From the free-kick Maxi Moralez took advantage of the disorganisation in the Miami defence -- slipping a pass to the unmarked Slovenian Mitja Ilenic who fired into the bottom corner.

Miami with a makeshift, inexperienced central defensive pairing of Noah Allen and Ian Fray, struggled to get a grip on the game although substitute Robert Taylor forced City keeper Matt Freese into a fine save at the end of the half.

New York could sense there was the chance for an upset but they could barely believe their luck when they were gifted the lead by Alba in the 55th minute.

The former Spain and Barcelona left-back passed straight to New York forward Martinez who gleefully accepted the gift and burst goalwards before slotting past Oscar Ustari.

Messi was getting little in the way of quality service and next to no support from the largely ineffective Luis Suarez who was substituted four minutes after the goal.

Freese kept out a Messi free-kick and Alba found Federico Redondo with a fine pull-back but the midfielder side-footed wide.

But in the 10th minute of stoppage time Messi provided the touch of class Miami needed - slipping a perfectly weighted pass through to Telasco Segovia and the Venezuelan provided a deft finish to lift the ball over Freese for the equaliser.