Man City rallies to beat Club Brugge and advance in Champions League, Canada’s David scores for Lille

By Canadian Press on January 29, 2025.

GENEVA (AP) — Manchester City flirted with a disastrous exit from the Champions League before rallying to beat Club Brugge 3-1 in a must-win game Wednesday and advanced to the knockout phase.

Man City trailed 1-0 at halftime, and sat 26th in the 36-team standings, before the 2023 title-winner was sparked by substitute Savinho to avoid elimination. City finished 22nd.

Meanwhile, French club Lille finished in the top eight and booked a spot in directly in the round of 16 with a 6-1 rout of Dutch club Feyenoord. Canadian international Jonathan David scored for Lille, giving the striker from Ottawa 19 goals on the season including eight in Champions League play.

Paris Saint-Germain also secured its place in the top-24 teams and will enter the knockout playoffs rounds, winning 4-1 at Stuttgart to eliminate the German club.

PSG impressed again after a crucial 4-2 comeback win over Man City one week ago, and rose to 15th place. That puts PSG on a path to meet Liverpool or Barcelona in the round of 16 in March if it wins an all-French playoff against Monaco or Brest.

Real Madrid and Bayern Munich finished outside the top eight despite winning their last games and both must enter a knockout playoffs round over two legs in February. Madrid won 3-0 at Brest and Bayern beat Slovan Bratislava 3-1.

Only the top eight teams go direct to the round of 16 and Bayern finished 10th with defending champion Madrid 11th.

Inter Milan, Arsenal and Atletico Madrid sealed top-eight finishes as expected — joining Liverpool and Barcelona advancing direct to the round of 16 – with low-key wins. Inter beat Monaco 3-0, Arsenal won 2-1 at Girona and Atletico won 4-1 at Salzburg, which had a woeful campaign.

Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa completed the top eight.

Stuttgart dropped to 26th place and was eliminated along with Dinamo Zagreb, despite its 2-1 win over AC Milan. Brugge took the 24th qualification place ahead of Dinamo on the tiebreaker of goal difference.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press