THE final night of the Champions League is HERE – and it’s win or go home for many teams.
Manchester City are one such side after a horror Champions League campaign culminated in a 4-2 capitulation against Paris Saint-Germain last week.
Man City must win to avoid Champions League elimination[/caption]
Yet while City needed a win to have any chance of qualification – they are now staring down the barrel of elimination.
Pep Guardiola’s side have to beat Club Brugge and then hope other results go their way.
Do Champions League teams drop into the Europa League if they don’t qualify?
In previous years, teams that struggled during the Champions League group stage always had the safety blanket of dropping down into the Europa League.
Chelsea famously became the first team to win the Champions League and Europa League in consecutive seasons in 2012 and 2013.
The Blues won in Munich under Roberto Di Matteo but six months later were dumped out of the group stage – costing Di Matteo his job – and moved into the secondary competition.
Rafa Benitez took charge and lead the team to Europa League glory in Amsterdam.
But teams won’t be able to go down that route anymore.
The expanded Champions League – which has seen an increase in teams and a dramatic change in the format – means teams will no longer drop into the Europa League.
The new 36-team format sees the top eight in the league phase qualify automatically for the last 16.
Teams that finish 9 to 24 are then entered into a draw to play a two-legged tie to make it into the last 16.
The teams that finish 25th to 36th are then ELIMINATED from ALL European competition.
