Liga dos Campeões: Surpresas iniciais na fase de grupos

Last Updated on Outubro 16, 2026 4:06 pm by Erwin Noguera

Aston Villa has the joint-best goal difference in the Champions League. Inter Milan have no points.

Villa is third on six points and a +7-goal difference, level with Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona. They won 3-2 at Club Brugge and then beat Fenerbahçe 6-0.

Inter are 29th of 36. They lost 2-1 at Real Madrid and then lost 3-4 at home to Club Brugge, the same Brugge side Villa had already beaten.

And Matchday 2 produced 78 goals across two nights, a figure that reads like a misprint until you add the scorelines up.

Two matchdays into a competition that runs until 27 January, here is what the table actually says.

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The League Phase After Two Matchdays

The cut lines are what make this format brutal.The top eight go straight to the round of 16.Teams 9 to 24 are drawn into two-legged playoffs for the remaining places.The bottom twelve are eliminated before February.

Real Betis is ninth on six points. Nine points’ worth of nothing separates a direct route to the last 16 from an extra two-legged tie.

Aston Villa Are the Story Nobody Predicted

Nine scored, two conceded, and a goal difference only par with PSG and Barcelona.

They opened by winning 3-2 at Club Brugge, a result that looked routine at the time and looks considerably better now that Brugge has gone to Milan and won. Then they put six past Fenerbahçe without reply.

That 6-0 is the largest winning margin in the competition so far, bigger than PSG’s 6-1 over Slovan Bratislava and Bayern’s 5-0 against Bodø/Glimt.

Villa’s next two fixtures are the test: Viking at home on Wednesday, then Barcelona away on 3 November. First should keep the run going. The second will say whether this is real.

Stuttgart, Sporting, and Betis: Three More on Maximum Points

VfB Stuttgart is fourth on six points with a 6-1 goal difference. They beat Viking 3-1 and then won 3-0 away against Slovan Bratislava. Only Arsenal has conceded fewer. They host Atlético Madrid on Tuesday, which is the first real examination.

Sporting CP are sixth with five scored and one conceded. They beat Galatasaray 3-1 and then won 2-0 at Lens. Two wins, two clean-ish sheets, no fuss.

Real Betis are ninth, and they have done it the hard way.3-2 at Lille, then 3-2 at home to Porto: two single-goal wins against opponents who are now 34th and 30th respectively. Six points is six points, but the margins say they are closer to the playoff places than to the top eight.

Arsenal Have Not Conceded a Goal

Four scores zero against. The only side in the competition yet to be breached.

They won 0-1 at Napoli on Matchday 1 and 3-0 against Lille on Matchday 2. On a matchday that produced 78 goals, Arsenal kept a second clean sheet.

Seventh place on that record is a quirk of goal difference: PSG, Barcelona, and Villa are all at +7 on the back of heavier scoring. Arsenal’s profile is the one most likely to survive January.

They are travelling to Bayern Munich on Wednesday. That is the fixture of the matchday after PSG-Barcelona.

Inter Milan Are the Collapse

Zero points from two games, 29th in the table, and the manner of it matters more than the position.

They lost 2-1 to Real Madrid, which is forgivable. Then they lost 3-4 at home to Club Brugge, which is not.

Conceding four at the San Siro to a Belgian side that Aston Villa had already beaten is the single worst result of the league phase so far. Inter scored four and conceded six in two games.

They host Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday: Shakhtar being on four points and 11th. A third defeat would leave Inter needing something close to four wins from five.

Napoli Have Scored One Goal

0-1 at home to Arsenal, then 3-1 at Villarreal. One goal in two matches, no points, 32nd.

Napoli are in the bottom twelve, and the bottom twelve go out. They play Bodø/Glimt at home on Tuesday (a side with three points from a 0-5 defeat and a 1-0 win) and it is already a game they cannot lose.

Manchester City Are 17th

Won 2-0 at Porto. Lost 2-4 at home to Paris Saint-Germain.

Four scored, four conceded, three points, seventeenth. For a club whose domestic season has been dominated by the regulatory case against them, a mid-table European return is not the distraction they need.

PSG scoring four at the Etihad is the number to sit with. City host AEK Athens on Tuesday, which should be three points, and then travel to Leipzig.

The Underdogs Who Have Already Done Damage

Bodø/Glimt beat Borussia Dortmund 1-0. Their two results are 0-5 and 1-0: thrashed by Bayern, then a clean sheet against Dortmund. It is the most contradictory pair of results on the board.

Viking FK drew 3-3 with Bayern Munich. Bayern opened by winning 5-0. The Norwegian side are 27th on a single point, and it came against the German champions.

Sabah beat Slavia Praha 2-0. The Azerbaijani club lost 4-0 at Manchester United on Matchday 1 and then won their first Champions League match. Slavia are 31st on zero.

And Como beat RB Leipzig 4-1 on their first appearance in the competition, before losing 3-2 at Feyenoord. Twelfth place and a positive goal difference for a club that was in Serie B three seasons ago is the best story on the table.

Matchday 3: Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 October

Paris Saint-Germain vs. Barcelona. First against second, both on six points, both at +7. The two best records in the competition meet in week three.

Bayern Munich vs. Arsenal. The only unbeaten defense against a Bayern side that has scored eight and dropped points to Viking.

Stuttgart vs. Atlético Madrid. The surprise package against a side that has just beaten Manchester United 2-0.

Inter vs. Shakhtar Donetsk. Inter’s season.

Como vs. Manchester United, Aston Villa vs. Viking, Real Madrid x Leipzig, Liverpool vs. Villarreal, Napoli vs. Bodø/Glimt e Manchester City vs. AEK Athens complete the round.

What the First Two Rounds Actually Established

The format punishes slowly starts in a way the old group stage did not. With eight matches and a single table, two defeats put you in the bottom twelve, and the bottom twelve do not get a playoff, they get eliminated.

Four clubs on maximum points were not expected to be there: Aston Villa, Stuttgart, Sporting CP and Real Betis. Villa’s numbers are the most convincing by distance.

Four clubs with pedigree are already in trouble: Inter and Napoli on zero, Roma on one, and Manchester City seventeenth.

And 78 goals in two nights tell you the competition has not settled into anything cautious yet.Six matches remain, the league phase runs until 27 January, and Matchday 8 is played simultaneously: eighteen matches at once, with eight direct qualifying places and twelve eliminations decided inside two hours.