GENEVA (news agencies) — Manchester City is heading for a stunning and embarrassing early exit from the Champions League, trailing 1-0 at halftime at home to Club Brugge on Wednesday.
The 2023 title winner needs a victory to advance to the knockout stage but trailed to a 45th-minute goal by Raphael Onyedika for the Belgian champion, which is already assured of moving on to the knockout playoffs round. The top 24 in the new 36-team standings advance.
Man City sat in 26th place at halftime with 25th-place Stuttgart also going out as it trailed 3-0 at home to Paris Saint-Germain.
PSG was the other European power that risked a humiliating failure in the first edition of expanded Champions League format but has built on its thrilling 4-2 win over Man City in Paris one week ago.
All 36 teams were in action in 18 games that kicked off at the same time, and the halftime standings left defending champion Real Madrid and Bayern Munich outside the top eight places that go direct to the round of 16.
Madrid was leading 1-0 at Brest and Bayern was 1-0 up at home to Slovan Bratislava, which left them 11th and 10th, respectively, in the live standings.
Atalanta was hanging on to eight place while drawing 0-0 at second-place Barcelona.
The 24th place was occupied by Sporting Lisbon which was losing 1-0 at home Bologna.
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