The new-look 2024/25 Champions League has reached crunch time with the first legs of the knockout round play-offs being staged over Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
The 16 clubs who finished in positions nine to 24 in the league phase do battle over the next two midweeks for the right to join the big eight, including Liverpool, Barcelona and Inter Milan.
Five former winners are in action on Tuesday night and there are storylines everywhere so expect a thrilling night of entertainment.
- OUSMANE DEMBELE ANYTIME SCORER vs BREST
- REAL MADRID TO BEAT MANCHESTER CITY
- JUVENTUS TO BEAT PSV
- SPORTING LISBON vs BORUSSIA DORTMUND OVER 2.5 GOALS
Brest vs Paris Saint-Germain
The Tuesday night Champions League play-offs card kicks off with an all-French affair between Brest and Paris Saint-Germain.
Bretons Brest are making their first ever European appearance, never mind in the Champions League, and have had a fabulous campaign.
Eric Roy's men qualified for this stage with four wins out of eight with the 1-0 win over PSV at the start of December the victory which all but stamped their ticket.
However, they had three games against European elite clubs in the group phase, creditably drawing 1-1 with Bayer Leverkusen but also suffering a pair of 3-0 losses to Barcelona and Real Madrid.
And given that they were smashed 5-2 at home by PSG in Ligue 1 just 10 days ago you have to fear for the provincial outsiders in the first leg.
Ousmane Dembele was the star of that 5-2 triumph at the Stade Francis-le-Ble - which isn't their home in the Champions League; this fixture will be played in nearby Guingamp because Brest's own ground isn't up to UEFA's standards.
Dembele scored a hat-trick, three days after bagging another treble at Stuttgart in this competition.
The France international has now scored in each of his last eight league and Champions League games, netting 15 times in total.
Over the course of the season Dembele has bagged 21 and is clearly in riotously good form in front of goal, so he looks like the bet to find the net at the Stade de Roudourou.
OUSMANE DEMBELE ANYTIME SCORER
Man City vs Real Madrid
The winners of the last two Champions Leagues clash at the Etihad, the sort of tie that many would have envisaged as a final rather than a play-off round tie.
But the reigning champions of England and Spain have made hard work of progressing with Pep Guardiola's Premier League giants needing a second-half fightback in their final game against Club Brugge to avoid an early elimination.
Things are not great at Manchester City, humbled 5-1 at Arsenal a week ago and, while they have picked up from their pre-Christmas meltdown, they are still a pale shadow of their former selves.
And they look ripe for the beating by a Real Madrid side who have lost only twice in over two months and showed real resolve coming from behind to draw 1-1 with title rivals Atletico in Saturday night's Madrid derby.
This is a repeat of last season's quarter-final, a two-legged affair which ended in a penalty shoot-out after both games ended in draws.
Guardiola accepts that Real's front four of Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham can't be stopped and that they have to deny them looks at the ball.
The problem for City is they are far too easy to cut open and the likelihood is that Los Blancos could do to them what Arsenal did.
REAL MADRID WIN
Juventus vs PSV
The three clubs out of the 36 involved in this year's Champions League group stage whose games produced the fewest goals were all from Serie A.
Inter Milan's eight matches produced 12 goals, Bologna's 13 and Juventus' 16.
Italian sides know how to douse opponents and see out ties better than most and the fact that Juve conceded just seven goals in the league phase shows the size of the task facing PSV at the Juventus Stadium.
One of those seven conceded was from PSV's Albanian midfielder Ismael Saibari when the teams met back in September on Matchday One.
Juve were already three up at the time and happy to begin their campaign with a 3-1 win. Since then, however, they have won just two more ties, 3-2 at Leipzig and 2-0 at home to Man City.
PSV were on just two points after three rounds of matches but finished like a train, winning four of their last five, including a decisive 3-2 win over Liverpool in which they were helped no end by the fact that the Reds sent out a weakened team.
PSV haven't had a great week or so, dropping points against NEC and Willem II to hand Ajax an edge in the Eredivisie title race and they are suffering with a share of injuries.
Juve have beaten PSV at home once this season and are fairly priced to complete the double.
PSV OR DRAW DOUBLE CHANCE
Sporting Lisbon vs Borussia Dortmund
Sporting can do no wrong in Portuguese domestic football, but the wheels came dangerously close to completely coming off in the Champions League.
After a decent start they managed just one point from their final four rounds of games, only scraping through courtesy of a late equaliser in their final fixture at home to Bologna.
They are, however, taking on a Dortmund side in something of a transition.
Nuri Sahin has left the dugout to be replaced by Niko Kovac, whose first match in charge ended in a 2-1 home loss to Stuttgart at the weekend.
That there were goals at both ends should be no surprise. Dortmund haven't kept a clean sheet since November and have found the net in all but one of their last 18 matches.
They had 16 attempts on goal against Stuttgart, who had four.
Two of the competition's hottest strikers, Sporting's Viktor Gyokeres and Dortmund's Serhou Guirassy, will look to outgun each other in a game that promises to be a lot of fun.
OVER 2.5 GOALS
