Which five Champions League clubs surprised us in the new format?
The first season of the new 36-team, single-league table UEFA Champions League built to a crescendo on Wednesday night with all the final games kicking off at the same time — and it delivered the drama and chaos we crave.
Much of the focus, naturally, fell on the varying fortunes of the big guns: Manchester City squeezed into top 24, Paris Saint-Germain needed a win to be certain of qualifying, while AC Milan fell unceremoniously out of the top eight with a 2-1 loss to Dinamo Zagreb.
But for every top team underperforming, there’s an underdog seizing their moment and taking their place. And during his phase, Aston Villa, Lille, Brest, Celtic and Club Brugge certainly rose to the occasion as they all secured unexpected placings in the next round.
There are some common themes among the teams who exceed expectations: They all benefited from the new format’s more egalitarian outlook on fixtures, they all had one particularly spectacular result that changed their outlook, and almost all of them can thank their goalkeepers for some truly sensational performances.
Finished Top 8
What drove their success: Brilliant goalkeeping, young stars flourishing and Jonathan David penalties
Lille fought tooth and nail to even get into the Champions League group phase, counting on a 118th-minute penalty from Jonathan David to beat Fenerbahce in a qualifier to earn the right to then squeeze past Slavia Prague. The range of emotions these players and fans had experienced before they’d even confirmed their place in the final round was remarkable.
Lille started poorly, falling 2-0 to Sporting CP in a run of four straight losses across all competitions. It was a surprise to everyone, therefore, when they tightened up and deservedly beat Real Madrid 1-0 in the second game; then a downright shock when a heavily rotated and young XI sent to play Atlético Madrid returned with a 3-1 win.
David scored a penalty in each of those games, which became a clear theme of their Champions League campaign, but it’s important that doesn’t distract from another important theme: Bruno Génésio’s bold decision to trust youngsters on the biggest stage. Ayyoub Bouaddi made his professional debut against Real Madrid on his 17th birthday, three of the starters away to Atleti were aged 20 or younger, and 20-year-old Ngal’ayel Mukau was the Man of the Match with two goals in the win over Bologna. Underpinning all of these was Lucas Chevalier’s excellence between the sticks. The 23-year-old is one of Europe’s finest young goalkeepers and delivered some fine performances.
Opta gave Lille just a 33% chance of reaching the top eight heading into the final night, but beating Feyenoord 6-1 in a bizarre game that featured two own-goals allowed them to edge past AC Milan and Atalanta.
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Finished Top 8
What drove their success: A famous Bayern win, Jhon Durán wondergoals and Morgan Rogers’ breakout season
This is Aston Villa’s first Champions League campaign for 42 years and while Premier League teams are expected to perform strongly in Europe, a top-eight finish wasn’t ever seriously talked about before the competition began. But three straight wins to begin, including a famous 1-0 victory over Bayern Munich, changed expectations and paved the path to success.
Those first three performances were very different to the following five — they came at a time where Villa were playing confident football, so Young Boys and Bologna were dismantled, while Bayern were seen off thanks to incredible grit, determination and a wondergoal from Jhon Durán. Morgan Rogers also exploded onto the European scene, as his direct dribbling style took teams apart.
From there, things got stickier, and in the end Villa did just enough, overcoming some bizarre moments to qualify. In their trips to Monaco and Club Brugge, they struggled and in Brugge, Tyrone Mings picked the ball up in his own box from a goal kick (resulting in the penalty that won the game). On the penultimate day in Leipzig, they played exhilarating-but-fragile football to win 3-2.
That left a must-win home bout with Celtic on a final matchday, which ended up a carnival of emotion. They went 2-0 up, were pegged back to 2-2, hit the post, had a shot cleared off the line and missed a penalty en route to an eventual 4-2 win, with Rogers completing a hat trick late on to seal it.
A comfortable top 24 finish
What drove their success: Overcoming injuries, counter-attacking masterclasses and goalkeeping heroics
Brest finished 14th in Ligue 1 in 2022-23, so for them to find themselves in the Champions League just over a year later is a remarkable achievement in itself. The conservative goal going into the competition was to simply be competitive, yet they ended up comfortably qualifying for the playoffs and were even in contention to finish in the top eight going into the final gameweek.
They did this despite not being able to strengthen considerably during the summer window (Ligue 1’s broadcasting revenue situation affected all teams bar Paris Saint-Germain), not playing home games at their own stadium (it’s not up to UEFA standard) and they also lost two of last season’s shining stars — Pierre Lees-Melou and Bradley Locko — to injury.
Brest could, and probably should, have collapsed, but their ability to overcome those setbacks and collectively step up was immense. Their gameplan was to weather attacking storms and counterpunch with pace — an age-old tactic that worked perfectly. The man who made that possible was goalkeeper Marco Bizot, who put in a handful of exceptional performances to keep them in games and allow the strategy to play out (if you watch the highlights, you can hear the crowd chanting “Bizot Bizot! Bizot!” after big saves.)
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A comfortable top 24 finish
What drove their success: Peak Kasper Schmeichel, beating Pot 4 teams and THAT night against RB Leipzig
Celtic are a household European name with more historical success at this level than the vast majority of clubs, but this past decade has represented slim pickings for them in the Champions League. The last time they reached the latter stages of the competition was 2013; since then it has been a lot of fourth-placed group finishes or qualifying stage knockouts. So although the goalposts have been moved a little — widened, you might say, given eight more teams qualify now than before — accruing 12 points is proof they’ve turned up and changed the narrative this year, regardless of the format.
Celtic’s start to the tournament was wild: They beat Slovan Bratislava 5-1, then lost to Borussia Dortmund 7-1. From there, though, they settled into a groove of being hard to beat, relying on goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, who hit top form on the big nights.
Then came a magical night against RB Leipzig, when Celtic winger Nicolas Kühn scored twice in a 3-1 win, prompting newspaper German Bild into an existential crisis, running the stunned headline: “German no-name embarrasses Leipzig!” (which is odd, considering he spent three years at Leipzig from 2015-18.)
Schmeichel had time for one more tremendous night, at Villa Park, where he pulled off a host of magnificent saves to make things nervy for Aston Villa, completing an incredible individual league phase.
Squeezed into the playoffs
What drove their success: Consistency of selection, a bit of luck and Hans Vanaken’s calm control
Make no mistake, Club Brugge are no strangers to the Champions League; they’ve played over 100 games in this tournament and have been a fairly consistent presence since 2015. But rarely have they looked this competitive and difficult to handle.
The secret to their power lies in the consistency of their team selection: Six players started all eight league-phase fixtures, while four more started all but one. But for a red card to Raphael Onyedika and a January transfer exit for Andreas Skov Olsen, they would have come mightily close to a full 100% record with the same 11 players.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that Brugge were able to dig in and defend like a well-drilled army unit, then spring away on the counter and do some damage. Hans Vanaken, their captain and midfield heartbeat, played brilliantly, consistently picking the right pass at the right time to ensure chances were created.
His focus was on bringing forward Christos Tzolis into the game as often as possible and though he may have only scored once in eight games, he was a lively presence in the absence of a proper goal-scoring No. 9 striker.
Finally, it would be remiss to talk about Club Brugge’s journey without accepting they benefited from a little luck along the way. They beat Villa 1-0 thanks to that incredibly strange penalty; and Celtic’s Cameron Carter-Vickers scored the strangest own goal of the league phase, attempting a simple pass back to Schmeichel but instead guiding into his own net, in a game that finished 1-1.
