Which Americans impressed, best and worst teams, more

The 2024-25 UEFA Champions League is underway in its new format, and match day one is wrapped up as Real Madrid kicked off their title defense, while big hitters Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain got off to a winning start. After a first round with plenty of goals, drama and storylines we asked our writers Gab Marcotti, Mark Ogden and Alex Kirkland to answer some of our burning questions.

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Does the new model mean we’re going to get more blowouts like Bayern 9-2 Zagreb or Celtic 5-1 Bratislava? And is it right for teams to run up the score?

Ogden: I’ll answer the second part of the question first — I don’t have a problem with teams running up scores. It’s a league competition, goal difference could matter at the end of it all and, as brutal as it may sound, that’s the reality of life at the top. If it’s a knockout cup tie between teams from three or four divisions apart, then don’t humiliate the smaller team by running up a big score. But the 32 teams in the Champions League are in a league competition, so tough, get on with it.

As for the first part, I don’t see how the new model makes any difference to the prospect of more blowouts. Bayern could have faced Dinamo Zagreb in the old group stage and scored nine, so let’s park the idea that the new format will give us more big winning margins. Arsenal beat Lens 6-0 in last season’s group stage, Atletico Madrid beat Celtic by the same scoreline. A year earlier, Liverpool beat Rangers 7-1 and Napoli won 6-1 at Ajax. So there’s really nothing unusual about the Bayern and Celtic scorelines this week.

Marcotti: I don’t understand … why would the new model incentivize blowouts? Goal difference was a thing in the old group stage too. If anything, you could argue that with eight games it’s less important. Also, Bayern defeating Zagreb is one thing, Celtic beating Slovan Bratislava is another. There are different levels of resource imbalance there.

As for running up the score, it’s a cultural thing I guess and a question of how you show respect to an opponent. In some cultures, it’s playing hard until the end and scoring as much as you can. In others, like mine, once the game is won (and there is no particular incentive to score more because goal difference isn’t rewarded) there’s no point in running up the score and making your opponent look bad. What I think is pathetic is when teams run up the score when the opponent has had a man sent off. That’s frankly unnecessary.

Kirkland: As Mark said, we’ve always had big scorelines in the Champions League. Real Madrid scored five goals against Celtic in 2022, five against Shakhtar Donetsk in 2021, six against Galatasaray in 2019 and five against Viktoria Plzen in 2018. There are countless examples. In a competition that often pits the biggest, most expensively assembled teams in Europe against the champions of much less wealthy leagues, it’s inevitable. And running up the score is fine. It’s sport. They’re professionals. It would be disrespectful to do anything else.

This European season is due to be a long and grueling one for players. Which team has the best supporting cast of players to rotate in and make an impact?

Ogden: The obvious answer here is Manchester City and Real Madrid, but let’s just look a bit deeper into this season’s new format and spell out why it’s not quite as grueling as some may think. Why? Because there are more opportunities for big teams to rotate squads and take it easy. They know they’re going to qualify for the knockout stage, barring an incredible run of bad form and bad luck, so they can treat some games less seriously than perhaps in a traditional group stage.

City can play their second string against Slovan Bratislava on match day two and win. Even if they don’t, City will still make it through. And manager Pep Guardiola will also know he won’t need to field all of his big players against Sparta Prague or Club Brugge. The bigger games against PSG and Juventus will need a stronger team, but because the top clubs have so many chances in this phase, we will see lots of them treat some games like early round Carabao Cup ties, which won’t be great for the spectacle.

Marcotti: I think there are two different factors at play here. One thing is rotating once you’ve clinched qualification. It happened regularly in match day 6 (and sometimes match day 5) with the old format. With this one it’s supposedly disincentivized because clubs will care about their seeding (I’m not super convinced that will be the case, frankly). But the other factor is teams that are likely to rotate from the start. And here a side like Inter (and to a lesser degree, Atletico Madrid) will have an edge.

When you’ve got teams that are accustomed to sending out the same XI most weeks and suddenly you have four or five new faces, that will have an impact, even if they’re all stars. But when you have sides — like Inter — who rotate all season long, there’s a certain interchangeability. We saw this in match day 1, when Inter traveled to face City and Simone Inzaghi had no problem benching Lautaro Martínez, Denzel Dumfries, Benjamin Pavard and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. In a league setting like this, that can give you an edge. But frankly, it’s all hot air right now: Once the knockouts kick in, you’ll see the best XIs.

Kirkland: Real Madrid’s squad is strong, no question. On Tuesday against Stuttgart, their bench included Éder Militão, Luka Modric, Arda Güler, Endrick and Andriy Lunin — and that’s with David Alaba, Eduardo Camavinga and Brahim Díaz all out injured. That’s almost an alternative XI that could compete in the Champions League, right there.

Coach Carlo Ancelotti has already talked about how he’s planning to give players individualised mini-breaks as the season goes on, so he will rotate. Otherwise, Atletico Madrid’s squad is stronger than it’s been in years. And Barcelona‘s squad is stronger than you might think, when you consider the quality of their youngsters and the number of players — Ronald Araújo, Gavi, Fermín López, Frenkie de Jong, Dani Olmo — who are currently unavailable.

Several Americans showcased across the games including Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic. Who were you most impressed with and why?

Ogden: I was impressed by Christian Pulisic’s goal for AC Milan against Liverpool. Great run, great finish, but that was as good as it got for him on the night. Still, a stunning goal in the San Siro against Liverpool isn’t a bad contribution.

Marcotti: He talked Pulisic, so I’ll talk McKennie. Juventus tried to move him on in the summer not because he was terrible, but mainly because, they’re in cost-cutting mode, he wasn’t playing up to his salary and he was a year away from free agency. They did mull a new deal, but it was actually a pay cut which, lets face it, can be a bit humiliating.

McKennie wasn’t interested in leaving and basically ended up betting on himself: that he would carve out enough playing time that he could move next summer as a free agent (and maybe even get a bump in salary). That’s a credit to him and it’s a credit to Thiago Motta that, once the window closed, he was open to giving him minutes. And he rewarded the coach with a goal in the win over PSV.

Kirkland: McKennie is the one who stands out, not just because of his goal — which was well taken — but a good all-round performance. Otherwise, I hadn’t seen Malik Tillman play before, and thought he looked decent for PSV.

Which team was most impressive, and which was the most disappointing?

Ogden: I’m going to say Celtic as the most impressive. To score five goals against Slovan Bratislava was one thing, but the atmosphere at Celtic Park emphasised what the Champions League means to teams outside the small cohort of likely winners. Two wins will probably be enough to qualify for the playoff stage and Celtic are now halfway there. This new format gives clubs like Celtic the chance to reach the knockout stage, which is why the final match days could be as exciting as UEFA hope.

Least impressive? AC Milan. It’s sad to see one of the world’s great clubs — only Real Madrid have been European champions more than Milan — produce such a dismal performance against Liverpool. The days of Milan dominating the competition aren’t so far in the past, but they seem a million years away.

Marcotti: So in the past 30 months only one team has gone to the Etihad and kept Manchester City from scoring. That was Arsenal in the Premier League last year and now Inter have matched that feat. And I think it was impressive because Inter had chances of their own (so did City, but that’s inevitable).

Most disappointing has to be Real Madrid. Yeah, they won, but Thibaut Courtois had to make some incredible saves and the third goal was a garbage time gift for Endrick. So far, the front three of Vinícius, Kylian Mbappé and Rodrygo, plus Jude Bellingham isn’t working. I thought, given the players Stuttgart lost in the summer, this would be the game where Madrid might click, at least offensively. They did not.

Kirkland: I was impressed by two teams whose performances merited more than the results they got: Girona and Stuttgart. Girona played really well away at PSG on their UCL debut, and were desperately unlucky to not leave Paris with at least a point, conceding in the 90th minute thanks to an error by goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga. PSG coach Luis Enrique said afterwards that playing Girona was “worse than giving birth.” And yes, Stuttgart ended up losing 3-1 at Real Madrid, but they deserved much more, playing brave, attacking football and creating plenty of chances. The biggest disappointment: Manchester City 0-0 Inter.