Champions League Power Rankings: Real Madrid, PSG and Chelsea continue to slide; there's a surprise No. 1

Plenty has changed since the group stages in Europe's biggest competition

Now then, where were we? Such was the brisk nature of this season's Champions League group stages, concluded in a hurry to make room for the World Cup, that it rather feels like the games that got us here have been lost to the sands of time, obliterated by events in Qatar. 

It does not help that there is something curious about the makeup of the 16 teams still standing. The leading lights in England and Spain are nowhere to be seen while so many of the clubs that are here this time out might not be back with us for the 2023-24 edition. Liverpool and Chelsea, we're looking at you.

Meanwhile, none of the perennial contenders look quite right. Manchester City are in trouble on and off the pitch and while Bayern Munich were the grateful recipients of Joao Cancelo, they spent much of the time before his arrival scrabbling around in search of wins. Their last 16 opponents, Paris Saint-Germain, are slumping and Real Madrid too. The English sides have strengthened their squads on paper but good luck finding evidence of it paying off on the pitch.