Bill ConnellyJan 22, 2026, 11:26 AM ETCloseBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Follow on X
play0:54Have Chelsea secured Champions League qualification after victory vs. Pafos?The ESPN “FC TV” crew reacts to Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Pafos FC in the UEFA Champions League.
play1:55Was Liverpool’s victory vs. Marseille their best performance of the season?The ESPN ‘FC TV’ crew react to Liverpool’s dominant 3-0 victory over Marseille in the UEFA Champions League.
Do Arsenal have the best squad in Europe? (2:54)The ESPN ‘FC TV’ crew react to Arsenal’s 3-1 victory over Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League. (2:54)
Have Chelsea secured Champions League qualification after victory vs. Pafos?The ESPN “FC TV” crew reacts to Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Pafos FC in the UEFA Champions League.
Was Liverpool’s victory vs. Marseille their best performance of the season?The ESPN ‘FC TV’ crew react to Liverpool’s dominant 3-0 victory over Marseille in the UEFA Champions League.
The ESPN ‘FC TV’ crew react to Liverpool’s dominant 3-0 victory over Marseille in the UEFA Champions League.
The penultimate matchday of the Champions League league phase was quite the random outcome generator. The less sense you tried to make of things, the better.
Manchester City getting sliced and diced by Bodo/Glimt in Pep Guardiola’s first trip to the Arctic Circle? Sure! Sporting CP scoring twice in the last 20 minutes and beating PSG? Okay! Ten-man Copenhagen generating basically all of the good second-half opportunities and taking points from a Napoli team that is now threatened with elimination? Makes sense!
Athletic Club, having scored four goals in 6.5 matches, scoring three in 16 minutes to steal three points and send Atalanta from a potential third to 13th in the table? Of course! Tottenham Hotspur, with dismal form and a coach (Thomas Frank) on the brink of getting fired, completely dominating Borussia Dortmund to move quite a bit higher in the Champions League table (fifth) than the Premier League table (14th)? Why not? Qarabag pulled another dramatic upset? Figures!
The result of this batch of nonsense: We head into the final matchday of the league phase with only two teams guaranteed of a top-eight finish and a bye to the round of 16 (Arsenal and Bayern Munich), and only four teams with no chance of advancing to the knockouts (Kairat Almaty, Slavia Prague and terribly disappointing Villarreal and Eintracht Frankfurt). The other 30 teams have stakes to play for.
– Champions League talking points: What’s wrong with Man City? – How teams can advance in Champions League – Northern Sights! Bodo/Glimt stun Pep Guardiola, Man City in arctic upset
Here’s what the enormous league phase table currently looks like, with each team’s points and goal differential, plus their odds of both advancing to the round of 16 and winning the title, per xStandings.com.
Arsenal remain perfect. Technically, Bayern could still end up atop the table if Kairat pull an all-time upset at the Emirates next week, but the odds are obviously very much in Arsenal’s favor for that one. In fact, the odds favor them ending up a perfect 8-for-8 in the league phase. With virtually every other super club (besides Bayern) battling ups and downs this season, Arsenal, with their defense, newfound depth and unholy set piece capabilities, have been the sport’s sure thing.
We know what the table looks like, in all its messy glory. But who’s actually good right now? Here’s my ranking of each Champions League team, one through 36.
(Note: These rankings are based on my personal opinions for where teams stand at the moment: it’s not intended to directly reflect the current table.)
1. Arsenal. According to StatsPerform data, Arsenal have scored 25 set-piece goals in all competitions, and in the 18 matches from which these goals came, the Gunners have won 17 (plus one draw). So basically, Gabriel Jesus’ 31st-minute goal against Inter at the San Siro, which came off of a corner and put Arsenal up 2-1, ended the match. I’m not sure why they even had to play the other 59 minutes (though it gave Victor Gyokeres a chance to join in the scoring, too).
2. Bayern München. They overran RB Leipzig last weekend with both nonstop chance creation and strong finishing (five goals from shots worth 4.6 xG), but while the former wasn’t much of an issue against Union Saint-Gilloise, the latter lacked. I forgot it was even possible for Harry Kane to miss a penalty, but he did so, and Bayern scored just twice from shots worth 3.1 xG.
Of course, Kane did still score twice, and if you keep generating over 3.0 xG in every match, you’re probably going to end up alright. Bayern are positioned well for a pretty friendly knockout-round draw.
3. Barcelona (up 7 spots since Matchday 6). Slavia Prague did an excellent job of gumming up the Barcelona attack and not allowing very many high quality opportunities — of Barca’s 20 shot attempts, only two were worth more than 0.1 xG. But Robert Lewandowski tapped one of those high-quality chances in, Dani Olmo scored on a long-range screamer, and Barca drew six offsides and didn’t allow anything good in transition after Vasil Kusej’s early goal.
Barca did their job, and with so many other teams in this area of the rankings failing to do that lately, they’re suddenly up to third here.
Granted, they allowed Monaco to attempt 20 shots and generate 1.4 xG, but attacking is fun, and Real Madrid did that nonstop (25 shots, 3.9 xG).
Mbappe’s brace gave him 11 goals in the competition; that’s so far ahead of the field that he’s comfortably generated the most combined goals and assists in the Champions League … with zero assists.
8. Liverpool (up 6). Mo Salah missed a pretty high-value chance but created value with his passing, while Alexis Mac Alister and Ryan Gravenberch were excellent in midfield, and Dominik Szoboszlai did something we’re growing awfully accustomed to at this point.
When Liverpool are avoiding transition breakdowns, they’re still awfully good. They limited Marseille’s opportunities and turned a potentially tricky road trip into a comfortable 3-0 win.
10. Chelsea (down 5). Pafos have proven to be awfully annoying to play in this competition — outside of a 5-1 loss to Bayern that got away from them, they’ve allowed just seven goals in eight matches — so simply handling business and taking three points was decent for Chelsea. But after managing only two wins in their previous eight matches, it was fair to hope for a bit more than an average of 0.09 xG per shot and zero goals from open play.
Have Chelsea secured Champions League qualification after victory vs. Pafos?
The ESPN “FC TV” crew reacts to Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Pafos FC in the UEFA Champions League.
11. Tottenham Hotspur (down 3). In their last 10 matches in all competitions, Spurs have won three matches — two in two Champions League matches and one in the other eight. That’s not quite how that’s supposed to go. Granted, Borussia Dortmund were poor from the start and got a red card in the 26th minute, but Spurs established superiority and played the type of poised, creative ball that we haven’t seen very much of under Thomas Frank.
12. Atletico Madrid (down 3). Diego Simeone’s side controlled the game at Galatasaray, producing shots worth 1.4 to their hosts’ 0.5, but a dire Marcos Llorente own goal in the 20th minute meant they had to settle for a draw. A win would’ve boosted them to fifth, but now they’re part of the giant 13-point morass.
13. Borussia Dortmund (down 2). They were done in against Spurs by a 26th-minute red card for Daniel Svensson, but make no mistake: They were awful before that, too. And that pretty much snuffed out any hope of a bye to the round of 16.
Since Oct. 1, they haven’t lost in Primeira Liga play, and they’ve only lost to Bayern in the Champions League. This is an awfully good team, and 28-year-old Luis Suárez has become quite the late bloomer — he had never scored more than eight goals in a season with a first-division side, and he has 22 goals for Sporting in January. That includes a brace against PSG.
Of course, three of those shots went into the net in short succession, as their 1-0 lead became an intensely frustrating 3-2 loss. They’ll need a win at Union Saint-Gilloise to have a shot at the top eight.
16. Juventus (up 2). When Juventus play against a Jose Mourinho team, stereotypes suggest a slugfest with minimal high-quality scoring chances. In fact, there were only three shot attempts all game worth over 0.1 xG and only two worth over 0.2. Benfica missed a penalty, and Weston McKennie — who never seems to miss in the Champions League — placed his high-quality chance (0.64 xG) in the net.
McKennie has scored in three straight Champions League appearances. May “Big Game Wes” make plenty of World Cup appearances this summer.
Was Liverpool’s victory vs. Marseille their best performance of the season?
19. Galatasaray (up 2). After losses to Union Saint-Gilloise and Monaco, Galatasaray really needed a result against Atletico Madrid and immediately fell behind thanks to a fourth-minute goal from Atletico’s Giuliano Simeone. After that, a 1-1 draw probably felt pretty acceptable. Still, they scored only on an own goal, and the duo of Victor Osimhen and Leroy Sané combined for zero shot attempts. Not great.
21. PSV (down 1). I admire how PSV doesn’t play it safe. They’re going to attack and attack, and that has allowed them to both destroy Napoli and Liverpool by a combined 10-3 while also losing to Union Saint-Gilloise and Newcastle by a combined 6-1. They’re right on the in-or-out border, which is scary with Bayern coming to town next week. But the great version of PSV can beat anyone, at least.
22. Olympiacos (up 2). They attempted only six shots against Bayer Leverkusen. Just two of them were on target, but both went in the net; both were also assisted by Rodinei, who’s enjoying the first Champions League action of his career at age 33. The win was unlikely from an xG perspective, but now they have a greater than 50% chance of advancing to the knockout rounds, per Opta’s supercomputer.