Week? No. Strong.

... like bull.

This afternoon, you’re in for a treat.

Thirty six teams enter.

Twenty four teams leave. Twelve teams leave. Twelve teams go home. Twelve seasons end.

The Champions League is about to drop 12 teams.

For those unfamiliar with this year’s brand new format, Uefa took the 36 teams with the “best” seasons last year and stuck them in a league. Each team drew 8 opponents. 4 at home. 4 on the road.

At the end of those 8 match days, the top 8 teams get a bye. Teams 9 through 16 play teams 17 through 24 in home and away ties.

Those winners face teams 1 through 8 in home and away ties. All the way until we get to the finals. That’s just one match, per the ushe.

That bracket will be determined in a drawing that happens at 6 am EST Friday morning on Uefa.com

So we know that Bologna, Sparta Prague, RB Leipzig, Girona, Red Star, SK Sturm Graz, RB Salzburg, Slovan Bratislava, Young Boys … your time on the island has ended.

Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Atalanta, Leverkusen, Aston Villa, AS Monaco, Feyenoord, Lille, Brest, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus and Celtic … pack your bags for the Casa D’Amor. You’re definitely playing more matches.

Liverpool and Barcelona are also guaranteed to finish in the top 8. so pack your bags for a vacation and then Casa D’Amor. Or something.

Current standings are as follows:

(There’s a 200 percent chance I made a typo in this chart. Source: it’s gotten late and I have the kid all day for Daddy Day Care on account of Lunar New Year.)

(🎊)

Expert analysis you came here for: There are some b🍌a🍌n🍌a🍌n🍌a🍌s possible spreads in this table.

Leverkusen, Aston Villa, AS Monaco, Feyenoord, Lille and Brest can each finish anywhere from 3rd to 22nd. All 8 teams from Juventus to Stuttgart, can finish in the top 8 or out of the competition completely. (some of those places would require some W.I.L.D. blowouts, but we’re talking math here.)

someone doing crazy math like it's goodwill hunting

(Is that finger chalk, AI?)

Are you in or are you out?

Eleven points is currently the fault line for that magical 24th spot. There are 8 teams that could mathematically finish with 11 points.

Those 8 teams are:

PSV, Brugge, Benfica, PSG, Sporting CP, VfB Stuttgart, Man City, Dinamo Zagreb.

Also trolling around down there is Shakhtar Donetsk.

Let’s start at the bottom.

Shakhtar Donetsk

Shakhtar Donetsk are currently in 27th place with 10 points and a -6 goal differential. They can grab that magical 24th spot with losses from Stuttgart, Man City and Dinamo Zagreb. Oh and they have to win at Borussia Dortmund by (5 goals - Stuttgart’s margin of loss to PSG) IOW, if PSG win 4-0, they need a one goal win at Borussia Dortmund.

So it ain’t likely.

Dinamo Zagreb

Dino Zagreb advance if Benfica loses, PSG and Stuttgart don’t tie, Sporting CP loses, and Man City loses or draws. Oh and their -8 Goal differential means they also have to beat AC Milan by about 6.

So it ain’t likely.

Man City

Man City are eliminated if they lose to Brugge at the Etihad.

Man City are eliminated if they draw against Brugge at the Etihad.

Man City are in with a win against Brugge. That will put them on 11. Their GD will be better than Brugge. Mathematically, they only have to move up one spot. And that will ensure they do it.

Stuttgart, Sporting, PSG and Benfica

Each team is in with a Man City loss or a Man City draw. (A 5+ goal win by Shakhtar Donetsk at Borussia Dortmund and a Stuttgart draw would doom zee German side on goal differential) and they’re also each in with a win or draw of their own. A loss and a Man City win dooms one of them. (But PSG and Stuttgart play each other, so 4 wins from this group isn’t possible.)

A loss by one of these teams will save Brugge.

Brugge

Brugge are in with a win against Man City

Brugge are in with a draw against Man City.

Brugge are out with a loss to Man City and no losses from Stuttgart, Sporting, PSG and Benfica.

PSV

PSV are in with a win against Liverpool.

PSV are in with a draw against Liverpool.

PSV are out with a severe enough loss to Liverpool and a Man City win to erase a 5 goal differential or severe enough loss to Liverpool, a Man City win and a PSG victory over Stuttgart that erases a 4 goal differential.

Predictions

So let’s say you wanted to sort of handicap this race. (is that phrase ableist? Is there a better way to convey that point? Someone remind me to go down that rabbit hole.) So you’d assign some expected point values based on home and away and if a team was a peer or way better or worse than you. Quibble with my totally made up math at your peril, but I went with something like this:

That is to say, if you’re at least ten spots above a team and playing at home, all things being equal, you’d expect the win. If you play them on the road, you’d expect to win two out of three. That kind of feels about right. Peer teams would expect a few more draws. So if you apply that to the matchups we have today, and the table we’ve got, you end up with something like this as a wild assed set of predictions:

a bunch of nervous worried soccer fans of all genders and races with pained faces biting their nails while watching matches on TV

Logjams at 8 and 24. Lovely.

Take care of yourself, and each other.