play0:43Are Arsenal favourites to win the Champions League?Alejandro Moreno and Steve Nicol debate who should be favorites to win the Champions League.
play1:57Are Chelsea more entertaining to watch under Liam Rosenior?Frank Leboeuf reacts to Chelsea’s 3-2 win over Napoli in the Champions League.
play2:12Klinsmann: Musiala’s return is huge for Bayern MunichJürgen Klinsmann praises Jamal Musiala after he scored on his first start since returning from injury in Bayern’s 2-1 win vs. PSV.
play1:34Burley: Barcelona’s attack will be a huge threat in UCL knockoutsCraig Burley reacts to Barcelona’s 4-1 win over Copenhagen in the Champions League.
play0:37Burley: Man City won’t come close to winning the Champions LeagueCraig Burley believes Manchester City’s defence isn’t good enough for Pep Guardiola’s side to win the Champions League.
Q1. What a night! Real Madrid fell out of the Top 8 with a 4-2 defeat at Benfica, a result that launched the Portuguese side into the knockout playoffs. Was Jose Mourinho’s turnaround the most dramatic ending ever to a group stage since you started watching the Champions League?
Q3. Arsenal and Bayern Munich are clearly the front-runners to win it all based on their dominance in the league phase. Is there any other team that comes close and can win it all?
Leboeuf: Benfica’s goalkeeper scoring was a Champions League miracle (1:41)Jürgen Klinsmann and Frank Leboeuf react to Anatoliy Trubin’s last minute goal to send Benfica to the Champions League playoffs. (1:41)
Are Arsenal favourites to win the Champions League?Alejandro Moreno and Steve Nicol debate who should be favorites to win the Champions League.
Are Chelsea more entertaining to watch under Liam Rosenior?Frank Leboeuf reacts to Chelsea’s 3-2 win over Napoli in the Champions League.
Klinsmann: Musiala’s return is huge for Bayern MunichJürgen Klinsmann praises Jamal Musiala after he scored on his first start since returning from injury in Bayern’s 2-1 win vs. PSV.
Jürgen Klinsmann praises Jamal Musiala after he scored on his first start since returning from injury in Bayern’s 2-1 win vs. PSV.
Burley: Barcelona’s attack will be a huge threat in UCL knockoutsCraig Burley reacts to Barcelona’s 4-1 win over Copenhagen in the Champions League.
Burley: Man City won’t come close to winning the Champions LeagueCraig Burley believes Manchester City’s defence isn’t good enough for Pep Guardiola’s side to win the Champions League.
Craig Burley believes Manchester City’s defence isn’t good enough for Pep Guardiola’s side to win the Champions League.
Multiple contributorsMultiple AuthorsJan 28, 2026, 08:09 PM ET
Q2. Who/what has been the biggest disappointment of the league phase?
Q4. Who/what was your favorite moment/goal/player of the league phase, and why?
Anatoliy Trubin’s heroics will long in the memory for Benfica fans and neutrals alike — and probably Real Madrid supporters, too — after the goalkeeper scored a stoppage-time goal to seal the Portuguese side’s place in the knockout phase.
Elsewhere, Arsenal completed a clean sweep, winning all eight of their league phase games, while Chelsea won 3-2 in Napoli — sealing the Blues a spot in the Top 8 and eliminating Antonio Conte’s side in the process.
So, with the league phase complete and seedings set for Friday’s knockout playoff round draw, ESPN FC’s writers weigh in on the action so far and what’s still to come.
– UCL final matchday as it happened: Napoli out, Madrid fall into playoff – Best Champions League tifos: Bob Marley, The Beatles, ‘Erling the Great’ – When is the Champions League knockout draw? Date, bracket, more
Sam Tighe: I can’t think of anything that matches that. The Real Madrid meltdown (two red cards), the fact the goalkeeper scored, the fact it was Mourinho … that was outrageous. The best comparison I can even try to offer is Pierre-Emile Højbjerg’s 95th-minute winner for Tottenham Hotspur against Marseille in 2022, which saw them qualify for the knockouts. But come on. Højberg is not a goalkeeper, so it’s significantly less novel than the utter madness we just watched.
Sam Marsden: For all the above reasons, it was obviously amazing. Very little can beat a last-minute goal from a goalkeeper. How it will be remembered will depend on what comes next, which I think we all hope will be another dose of Mourinho vs. Alvaro Arbeloa. It’s unlikely Benfica would beat Madrid over two legs (surely not?) but we all need Part II after the remarkable scenes we witness in Lisbon. Football gods, do your thing.
Are Arsenal favourites to win the Champions League?
Alejandro Moreno and Steve Nicol debate who should be favorites to win the Champions League.
Are Chelsea more entertaining to watch under Liam Rosenior?
Frank Leboeuf reacts to Chelsea’s 3-2 win over Napoli in the Champions League.
Marcotti: I kind of feel I need to address more than one issue here. The biggest disappointment has to be Villarreal. Their table looks worse than it should because after the Dortmund shellacking left them with one point from five games, they took their foot off the gas, which is understandable. But still, this is an embarrassment for a side that are fourth in LaLiga. Even with a stretched squad, you expected more.
Last year, Liverpool won the group stage. What was their reward (other than missing out on the playoff round)? Paris Saint-Germain in the Round of 16. Some reward!
Klinsmann: Musiala’s return is huge for Bayern Munich
Tighe: Mark’s right: The league phase isn’t a great indicator of what’s to come. You need only look at PSG here, who last season sprang to life at the turn of the year and suddenly became an unstoppable force. Tipping a team here isn’t easy, as there’s plenty of reasons to downgrade most team’s chances (Barcelona have Pedri’s dodgy hamstrings, Liverpool are too open, Real Madrid are too combustible), so I’ll be super boring and choose … the reigning champs, PSG, again.
The fact that they won’t be involved in a title race in the spring could also work in their favor, too.
Burley: Barcelona’s attack will be a huge threat in UCL knockouts
Craig Burley reacts to Barcelona’s 4-1 win over Copenhagen in the Champions League.
Marcotti: I’m going to go a bit left field here. It’s week one of the Champions League, Kairat Almaty, debutants in the competition, traveling away to Sporting CP. Their first-choice keeper got injured in the qualifying round against Celtic to get them into the league phase. Their second-choice keeper got injured four days earlier, in a league game, so 18-year-old Sherhan Kalmurza has to make his first-ever start as a professional.
Kirkland: For Real Madrid, two individual performances stand out. Mbappé’s four-goal haul at Olympiacos — including a seven-minute hat trick — and Vinícius’ display against Monaco in Matchday 7. Madrid haven’t been convincing overall, but Mbappé, as the competition’s top scorer so far, has delivered. Also, it felt like so long since we’d seen Vini performing at this level, with this kind of intensity and energy, creating three goals and then scoring a brilliant solo effort himself.
Burley: Man City won’t come close to winning the Champions League
Olley: From the games I attended, Estevao’s performance against Barcelona was a memorable highlight. Lamine Yamal is obviously a phenomenal talent, and the game was billed as Estevao’s chance to show he could one day reach Yamal’s level: two 18-year-olds with the world at their feet. It felt an unfair framing given how much Yamal has already achieved in the game and yet, on the night, the Brazilian produced a magical display capped by a brilliant individual goal.
Laurens: For me, it has to be Mbappé’s whole campaign so far. To score 12 goals in seven games is exceptional. There was his quadruple against Olympiacos, of course, but everything he has done so far in the competition has been amazing. He is on track to get close to his idol Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of 17 goals in a Champions League campaign. To do it in a dysfunctional side like this current Real Madrid, still not at their best collectively, is even more remarkable.
Gab Marcotti: Hell yes! Because it’s freaking Jose Mourinho against his old club! Because Benfica had lost their first four games in the group stage! Because it’s freaking Real Madrid! Because they had lost three of four games in all competitions prior to this one! Because they needed a raft of results elsewhere to go their way for this to even be a possibility! Because they actually battered Real Madrid (2.99 to 1.50 xG)! Because the goal came deep in injury time with the last touch of the game! Because the goal scorer, Trubin, is a freaking goalkeeper! Because Trubin didn’t appear to realize they needed a fourth and seemed to be time-wasting seconds before his goal! Because it’s Mourinho!
Alex Kirkland: It was an incredible, head-spinning few minutes, with Real Madrid all of a sudden out of the Top 8, and Benfica progressing, with Mourinho in tears as he headed down the tunnel after the final whistle. It’s hard to think of a group stage climax that came close. The most memorable turnaround featuring a Spanish team in recent years was probably Atlético Madrid, who had been bottom of their group before they went to FC Porto and won 3-1 in December 2021, with two of their goals coming in added time. But even that can’t compare to this. Real Madrid were famously never eliminated in the group stage in the old UCL format. Now, for two years in a row, they’ve been forced into the playoffs.
Ogden: I completely agree with James on this. The league phase may have heavyweight clashes on each matchday, but the games don’t really mean anything because the giants know they’ll qualify anyway. Ok, you might argue that was always the case in the old group phase, but we did see some super-clubs — Manchester United, Barcelona — crash into the UEFA Europa League in recent years, as there was more jeopardy and clubs knew they had less margin for error. This league phase has been a long preamble toward a somewhat inevitable conclusion.