Winners and losers from Champions League's revamped opening round

The opening round of this season's Champions League came to a thrilling conclusion Wednesday. We review the league phase of Europe's premier club competition by picking out the biggest winners and losers after a chaotic slate of matches closed things out.

Winner: UEFA

If you listen closely enough, you can hear Aleksander Ceferin and the UEFA bigwigs patting each other on the back right now. The revamped "Swiss" format was one of the standout stars of the opening round. It isn't perfect, and it's pretty transparently rooted in the greed of Europe's wealthy elite - more matches, more money, and less risk of outright failure were the primary motivations behind forcing the governing body into this change.

And yet, it was a clear success for UEFA, even if it did it mainly to stave off the threat of a breakaway Super League.

Wednesday's league phase finale, when all 36 teams played at the same time, was the crown jewel of the "new" Champions League so far. Scott Hanson, the face of "NFL RedZone," the world's preeminent sports whip-around show, praised the potential of "Matchday Mayhem" on social media. It was a spectacle built for a TV and mobile audience that can become a staple of the soccer calendar, similar to transfer deadline day, for years.

On the pitch, all but two of the 18 games had ramifications for the knockout stage. Teams that had already secured a playoff berth going into Matchday 8 wanted to slingshot up the standings and squeeze into the top eight, while others, like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, needed results to reach the playoffs at all. The stakes were tangible. Even though there weren't any truly stunning eliminations in the end - City, most notably, escaped - the movement of clubs up and down the table, often back-and-forth within minutes as goals flooded in all across the continent, was a rush. Events in one country directly impacted a match in another, with both partisan and neutral fans trying to keep up for two frantic hours as the live table changed and the knockout bracket shifted along with it.

There was some luck involved here, of course. Throughout the opening round, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, and other perennial powers oscillated between highs and lows, rising and falling in the standings, sometimes drastically, with each result. That created intrigue as underdogs like Brest, Lille, and Atalanta took advantage. That won't happen every season, but the format helped create that reality thanks to the wider variety of matchups. Detractors claim that there's no true jeopardy, and Man City, for instance, didn't face any real consequences for playing so poorly and winning just three times. That's not entirely true, though. They advanced, yes, but their lowly position will result in a playoff matchup against either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich in the next round, and the very real threat of not even reaching the last 16. Seems plenty consequential.

Meanwhile, teams that otherwise wouldn't even sniff the knockout stage under the old system have a chance to make history and memories.

"I really like it, and I think tonight the people watching on TV and in the stadiums must have really enjoyed it," Brest coach Eric Roy said. "There was a lot of suspense. It gives a chance to the smaller teams like us."

The old format, which often had groups decided after just four games and the favorites kicking their feet up to close out the round, had grown stale after two decades. The new one isn't flawless - eight matches is probably too many - but it's rejuvenated the early stage of the competition. For now, at least.

Loser: FIFPro

So, about those issues. The most glaring is the added workload. It seems new competitions are being added all the time, and existing ones are being expanded at both the club and international levels - hello, Gianni Infantino. Against that backdrop, giving every Champions League side two additional matches in the tournament's opening round and then adding a playoff round before the last 16 only contributes to the valid concerns about increased injury risk and player welfare.

It's not uncommon for players to make 65 appearances (or more) in a calendar year if there's an international tournament in the summer. The "offseason" doesn't exist anymore. No wonder knees are buckling and hamstrings are tearing all over the place. And yet, FIFPro, the union that "defends the working rights of over 60,000 men's and women's footballers," appears increasingly powerless to stop the bloat. A player strike, while eye-catching whenever it's discussed, is unlikely because consensus will be impossible to reach among FIFPro's vast player body; what might make sense for the elite Champions League star won't work for the League Two player. The former gets all the attention, but the latter is just as important.

If the supersized Champions League format continues to generate interest and excitement each season, how can FIFPro combat it? Clubs and fans are ravenous - one for revenue, the other for entertainment. Good luck telling either group that the tap needs to be turned off now.

Winner: Raphinha

No player had more goal involvements in the league phase than Raphinha, whose trickery, creativity, and clinical finishing helped Barcelona surge to second place in the table and an automatic berth in the last 16. The Brazilian, who finished the opening round with eight goals, four assists, and three Man of the Match awards, is starting to get Ballon d'Or whispers.

They could turn into shouts soon enough.

Barcelona still look defensively suspect under Hansi Flick. Of the 24 teams that advanced, only three - Feyenoord, Celtic, and, incredibly, Manchester City - conceded more goals than the Catalan side. But Raphinha always gives the tournament's great entertainers the chance to outscore their issues at the back. Barca's 28 league phase goals were easily the most of any side, and he was the driving force behind nearly half of them.

Loser: Pep Guardiola

Manchester City survived, but for how long?

Pep Guardiola's team got the nervy win it needed Wednesday against Club Brugge, but the 2023 tournament winners would've been sent packing if the Belgian side had been more ruthless in front of goal. City remain extremely brittle, and Guardiola still hasn't figured out how to address that problem. Perhaps extended reps and integration into the squad for January signings Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis, along with the return of injured defenders Nathan Ake and Ruben Dias, will rectify the issues. Defensive fragility is never a good quality, but it's especially problematic when you're staring down a matchup with either Real Madrid, where Kylian Mbappe now seems back to his frightening best, or Bayern Munich, who can throw an endless array of different and dangerous forwards at you.

Guardiola has to contend with that in the playoff round while navigating a brutal domestic schedule. In order, City's next four Premier League matches are against Arsenal, Newcastle, Liverpool, and bogey side Tottenham, and the two-legged tie against either Madrid or Bayern will be sandwiched right in the middle.

Winners: Lille

With respect to Aston Villa and their excellent eighth-place finish, arguably no team's success was more surprising or refreshing than that of Lille, who steamrolled Feyenoord 6-1 on Matchday 8 to grab seventh place in the table and an unexpected bye to the round of 16. Only Liverpool, at Anfield, and Sporting CP, when Ruben Amorim was still on the touchline, beat the French club in the opening eight matches. The Stade Pierre-Mauroy, where Bruno Genesio's team went unbeaten to collect 10 out of a possible 12 points, was absolutely rocking throughout the league phase.

Jonathan David was a big reason why.

The Canadian forward, an impending free agent, scored six goals in the opening round, including a scintillating three-match run against Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, and Juventus, in which he found the net four times. That's the kind of stuff you tell your grandkids about. He couldn't have timed his Champions League hot streak better if he tried. His next contract, whichever team it comes from, got more lucrative with each passing performance.

Loser: Jurgen Klopp

Red Bull's new head of global soccer has some immediate work to do. Perhaps more than he expected.

Leipzig and Salzburg, the two clubs flying the flag for the energy drink empire in this season's Champions League, finished with a combined two wins, six points, and a minus-29 goal differential en route to being eliminated from the tournament. The schedule didn't do either club any favors - both faced a gauntlet of Europe's elite - but this was still a resounding disappointment. One of Klopp's pupils, former Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders, was sacked by Salzburg in December. Marco Rose, another disciple, is under pressure in Saxony. Leipzig's showing was particularly ugly, highlighted by a 3-2 home loss to Juventus in a game where they led 2-1 and played against 10 men for 30 minutes. Given how pitiful Juve looked for much of the league phase afterward, hindsight paints an even bleaker picture for the German club.

Klopp also had to watch on as his former team, Liverpool, just kept rolling along without him, exceeding all expectations under his successor, Arne Slot, and grabbing first place overall after a nearly perfect league phase. His bond with Liverpool is such that he wouldn't want anything other than success for the club, but deep down, somewhere, he must be thinking: "It would be nice if they didn't look this great without me."