5️⃣ Things to watch out for in Wednesday’s Champions League action 💫

The sixth game week of the Champions League ends on Wednesday, the new table format is taking shape and qualification for the knockout round is getting closer and closer.

Here’s what to look out for in Wednesday’s games.

⚔️ Game of the day

It was a mess with Barcelona’s trip to Borussia Dortmund, but there’s just a lot more at stake for Juventus and Manchester City’s clash.

Both teams go into the game in Turin in similarly poor form and are in danger of missing out on automatic qualification for the knockout rounds and possibly even the playoff round.

After impressing with wins against PSV and Leipzig, the Old Lady have not won any of their last three games in Europe, although they did pick up a point in their last meeting with a Premier League team, a draw at Aston Villa.

Draws were a theme of Juve’s season. After a 15-game unbeaten start in Serie A, there have been nine draws, leaving them seven points behind in sixth place.

City’s recent problems have been well documented, with just one win in their last nine games. Their form in the Premier League has taken a nosedive, but the utter defeats to Sporting and Feyenoord are perhaps even more worrying.

Although City have never won away from Juventus, all previous meetings have come before Guardiola’s arrival and it is also the first meeting between him and Thiago Motta.

Both men need a win. Will either of them get it?

🔎 Team to watch

📸 Gualter Fatia – 2024 Gualter Fatia

While most of the talk about Portuguese football this season has focused on Sporting and current Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim, city rivals Benfica have remained under the radar despite some big wins.

The 4-0 defeat against Atlético de Madrid was one of the club’s best results in years, but there were also wins at Monaco and Red Star Belgrade and a narrow defeat in Munich against Bayern.

A 3-1 home defeat to Feyenoord suggests they can do well, but a home game against Bologna represents a great chance of moving closer to automatic qualification.

The Serie A side have struggled in their first appearance in the Champions League so far, failing to win a game and scoring just a single goal, and a raucous Estádio da Luz doesn’t seem like the right place to change that.

🔥 Players to watch

Jamie Gittens is enjoying a breakthrough season for Borussia Dortmund, with the young Englishman arguably the standout player so far.

The 20-year-old winger has scored in his last three Bundesliga games, including a fine strike against Bayern Munich, but he has attracted most of the attention in the Champions League.

He scored four goals and provided one assist in the first five games, which helped Nuri Şahin’s team to a strong position to automatically qualify for the knockout rounds and the young coach due to his weak Home form has relieved some of the pressure.

Barcelona and former Dortmund star Robert Lewandowski are their latest test, but with Hansi Flick deploying a very high defensive line and Gittens already scoring against Real Madrid, he will fancy his chances.

Whatever the case, it feels like being named in Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad is almost a formality at this point.

👀 Possible annoyance

📸 Ryan Pierse – 2024 Getty Images

Arsenal’s recent upturn in form was tempered with a disappointing 1-1 draw at Fulham on Sunday and they could be in for a tough evening against Monaco at the Emirates, particularly given their ongoing defensive problems.

Gabriel and Riccardo Calafiori have missed the last two games and are likely to miss again, while Jurriën Timber, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Thomas Partey are all questionable.

Adi Hütter’s team has performed well both at home and abroad this season. Like the Gunners, they are in third place in their domestic league and are only behind them in the Champions League on goal difference, with both teams having 10 points each from their first five games.

They are also unlikely to fear Mikel Arteta’s men as they have already replaced Barcelona this season and history is on their side.

Although 11 players played for both clubs and Arsene Wenger coached both, there have only been meetings between the clubs in the round of 16 of the 2014/15 season. A Monaco side featuring Dimitar Berbatov and Anthony Martial knocked out the Gunners on away goals after winning 3-1 in north London.

Idea?

📊 Fascinating statistics

Such is the financial inequality in modern football that it is hardly surprising that Slovan Bratislava found its first Champions League season a largely sobering experience.

They will almost certainly lose again in an away game at Diego Simeone’s Atlético de Madrid, making them only the sixth team to have lost their first six games in the competition, including two, rather dismal, colleagues from Slovakia – FC VSS Kosice 1997/98 and MSK Zilina 2010/11.

Could they pull off a big surprise and avoid the same fate?

📸 Ryan Pierse – 2024 Getty Images