UCL 2024-25 First Knockout Round Review: Yesterday was day one of the knockout rounds in the UEFA Champions League 2024-25, and there were a few surprises in store.
Unlike the seasons before, the first round of knockouts in the UCL is not the round of 16. But it is not a Round of 32 as well. First, as a refresher, this season of the Champions League had 36 teams, and unlike previous seasons, they were not divided into groups but were all in a single league where they played eight games each.
UCL 2024-25 First Knockout Round Review
The top eight finishing teams made it to the Round of 16. However, teams ranked 9th to 24th have qualified for the first knockout round, where they would face a team in two legs, and the winners would then go to the Round of 16.
With that in mind, there are a few surprising teams in this knockout pool. Some of these were expected to finish in the top eight, like defending champions Real Madrid, last season’s finalists Borussia Dortmund, and English champions Manchester City.
Let’s start with City, who took on Los Blancos in the biggest match-up of this knockout round. The first leg of this contest was played at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester and saw Erling Haaland open scoring in the 19th minute.
Real tied the game up in the 60th minute with Kylian Mbappe scoring the goal. So far, the two men seen as the torchbearers for the current generation of footballers had scored in this game, but the drama was far from over.
In the 80th minute, Haaland scored a penalty and seemingly secured a win for his side. But then, Brahim Diaz scored in the 86th minute due to a massive error by keeper Ederson. And then Jude Bellingham won the game for Real Madrid in the second minute of stoppage time off an assist from Vinicius Jr. And thus, the Madridistas won a difficult away game against the Cityzens.
Check Out: UCL 2024-25 First Knockout Round Review
Let us pull back a bit and focus on the first match of the night, an all-French affair as Paris Saint Germain took on Brest in the latter’s home ground of Stade de Roudourou. Vitinha opened the scoring by scoring a penalty in the 21st minute. Ousmane Dembele then doubled the lead right before halftime. Dembele scored another goal in this game in the 66th minute and ensured a 3-0 win away for the Parisians.
In another game, last season’s runner-ups Borussia Dortmund took on Sporting Lisbon, a team that got off to a red-hot start in the UCL before tapering off in the latter half of the league stage. And in yet another one-sided game for the night, BVB netted the ball thrice as Serhou Guirassy, Pascal Gross, and Karim Adeyemi scored for the German giants away.
In the fourth and final game of the night, Juventus took on Dutch side PSV. This was a much more competitive and defensive-minded game. The Old Lady took the lead in the 34th minute as American midfielder Weston McKennie scored a brace.
PSV did tie the game up 1-1 with an Ivan Perisic goal in the 56th minute as the game seemed to be headed for a draw. But then, in the 82nd minute, young German winger Samuel Mbangula scored Juve’s second goal and locked in a 2-1 lead for the Bianconeri at home.
Tonight, we will see the remaining teams play the first leg of this knockout round of the UEFA Champions League. Club Brugge will play Atalanta at their home ground. Meanwhile, Celtic will face a mighty challenge at home when they face Bayern Munich. In arguably the closest-matched game of this round, Monaco will face Benfica at home. And finally, AC Milan will travel to the Netherlands to face Feyenoord.
Check Out: UCL 2024-25 First Knockout Round Review
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