Roundup of all the knockout play-off action in 2024-25 UEFA Champions League.
The introduction of this new round saw those who finished between 9-24th in the league phase meet in eight separate play-off ties, which threw up plenty of drama and surprises amidst risk of early eliminations for some big names tipped to fight for the title.
Now, here is a roundup of how all eight knockout play-off ties unfolded.
Manchester City 3-6 Real Madrid
Erling Haaland twice fired Man City in front in the first leg with goals either side of Kylian Mbappe’s equaliser, before Brahim Diaz and Jude Bellingham salvaged a 3-2 victory for the reigning champions.
Real ultimately prevailed on aggregate with a 3-1 home win through Mbappe’s hat-trick despite Nicolas Gonzalez’s first club goal for City.
Celtic 2-3 Bayern Munich
Goals from Michael Olise and Harry Kane saw Bayern clinch a 2-1 away win in the first leg despite Daizen Maeda pulling a goal back for Celtic.
Nicolas-Gerrit Khun opened the scoring in the second leg as Celtic pulled level on aggregate until a late lucky goal from Alphonse Davies saw Bayern advance on aggregate with a 94th-minute equaliser.
Club Brugge 5-2 Atalanta
Hakan Gustaf Nilsson’s 94th minute penalty saw Club Brugge clinch a 2-1 first leg victory at home after Atalanta’s Mario Pasalic cancelled out Ferran Jutgla’s early opening goal.
Chemsdine Taibi’s brace and Jutgla’s first-half injury-time effort ultimately saw Club Brugge claim a shock 3-1 away win to seal their spot in the Round of 16, despite Ademola Lookman’s consolatory 46th minute goal for Atlanta in a futile second-half fightback.
Brest 0-10 PSG
Vitinha’s penalty and Ousmane Dembele’s brace saw PSG cruise to a 3-0 away win over French rivals, Brest in the first leg.
Vitinha was again on the scoresheet in PSG’s home leg with the third goal as the French champions ran riot in a 7-0 demolition of Brest, which was started by first-half goals from Bradley Barcola and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia before Desire, Doue, Nuno Mendes, Goncalo Ramos and Senny Mayulu completed the result.
Juventus 3-4 PSV Eindhoven
Goals from Weston McKennie and Samuel Mbangula fired Juventus to a 2-1 first leg win at home over PSV who briefly equalised through Ivan Perisic.
Perisic and Ismael Saibari however struck in PSV’s home leg despite Timothy Weah’s equaliser in-between their goals, which forced extra-time where Ryan Flamingo’s winner saw the Dutch hosts through on aggregate with a 3-1 second leg victory.
Monaco 3-4 Benfica
Vangelis Pavlidis scored the only goal of the first leg as Benfica clinched a 1-0 away win in the first leg, which the Portuguese club subsequently followed up with a 3-3 home draw to seal their progression as Pavlidis again netted with Kerem Akturkoglu and Orkcun Kokcu too on the scoresheet.
Takumi Minamino, Eliesse Ben Seghir and George Ilenikhena scored Monaco’s goals in the second leg as they came from behind to lead twice.
Feyenoord 2-1 AC Milan
Igor Paixao netted the only goal of the first leg in the fourth minute to put Feyenoord ahead on aggregate ahead of their second leg trip to the San Siro.
Santiago Gimenez restored aggregate parity for AC Milan in the first minute at home but the Italian club ultimately crashed out 2-1 on aggregate, as Julian Carranza salvaged a 1-1 draw for Feyenoord which sent them through.
Sporting Lisbon 0-3 Borussia Dortmund
Second-half goals from Serhou Guirassy, Pascal Gross and Karim Adeyemi saw Borussia Dortmund advance with a 3-0 aggregate win away from home in the first leg, with their return leg at home having finished goalless.
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