The new Champions League surprises the big teams. Real, City and PSG crisis: anything but a show

Paris Saint-Germain out, Real Madrid in the playoffs by the skin of their teeth, Manchester City in, yes, but as first of the last: you may not like the new format of the Champions League, and its abstruse formula certainly does not help understanding and projections, however reading the standings has an effect, especially now that the halfway point has been passed, when 5 out of 8 matchdays have been played.

The feeling is that of a total reshuffling of the cards, almost a reversal of the tables, at least for some of the favourites, those mentioned above, with the French in twenty-fifth place with just 4 points, the Madrid team twenty-fourth with 6 – all behind smaller teams such as Bruges, Dinamo Zagreb, Feyenoord and Celtic – and City at 8, seventeenth and expected, in the next round, to travel to the home of a Juventus team that has the same number of points as them, that is, few compared to expectations.

Almost a world upside down, if it weren't for the fact that in the first three places there are curiously three teams that were the losing finalists of the last three editions: in front of everyone is Liverpool who reached the final act in 2022, then Inter (2023) and Borussia Dortmund (2024), when in fact the ones celebrating were Real, City and Real again, who today look down on most of the company. To be clear: anything can still happen, because there are still three games to go and the last of the direct qualifiers, Monaco, has 10 points, however some results are surprising.

Real, our Lady of the Champions League, is perhaps the one that has the most impact: starting as the reigning champion and with the big drum of the arrival of Mbappé, despite having added one of the best strikers in the world, Ancelotti's team is experimenting with the figurine effect, the one according to which the result of the addition of new addends is, in reality, a subtraction. The defeats against Lille, Milan and Liverpool can also be explained in this way, and moreover the Merengues - who, already without Vinicius, Tchouameni and Rodrygo, have lost Camavinga: he will miss the match with Atalanta - are behind Barcelona also in La Liga.

The situation is more complicated for Guardiola's City, who have run into an unprecedented crisis in the Guardiola era, in which the draw in Manchester with Feyenoord put an end to a sequence of five consecutive defeats between the league and cups. Nothing is lost, but there is some compromise and - net of the risks of the Premier League trial for violations of financial fair play - the situation on the pitch cannot be explained only by the injuries of Rodri and Dias. The penultimate matchday, in January, will also see City face another big disappointment, PSG, who lead Ligue 1 but have only beaten Girona in the Champions League and, if it ended today, they would be out.

It makes less noise, but it is still sensational, to see Leipzig at the stake: 0 points for the first team Red Bull, last with the clay pots Slovan Bratislava and Young Boys (very predictable), but even behind Salzburg (3 points), the older brother, but cadet, supported by the same energy giant. Be careful, though: there is one round left in mid-December and two in the second half of January. With the market open, and it may not be a detail.