The Big Winner Of The Champions League Playoff Was Its Smallest Team

Five of the eight Champions League playoff ties went roughly as expected. Paris Saint-Germain had a bit more trouble separating itself from its Ligue 1 rival Monaco than predicted, but rode a 3-2 first leg win to a 5-4 aggregate victory. Newcastle demolished Qarabag, 9-3. Atlético Madrid turned a 3-3 first-leg draw around with a 4-1 second leg at home to dump out Club Brugge. Bayer Leverkusen vs. Olympiacos was a snoozer, won 2-0 on aggregate by the former. Real Madrid comfortably dispatched Benfica 3-1, with an uncomfortable amount of racism playing the starring role in the match-up. It all went pretty straightforwardly, in other words. Except for the racism, that sucked.

The other three ties provided some more excitement, though. Borussia Dortmund took a 2-0 lead from a dominant, entertaining first leg, but ran out of steam against Atalanta back in Italy, where the home side won 4-1 to squeak by on a one-goal aggregate victory. In what would normally be the biggest upset of the round, Galatasaray rocked Juventus 5-2 at home last week, and then endured a tie-leveling 3-0 Juve fight-back in the return leg before scoring two goals in extra time, the Turks advancing by a 7-5 aggregate margin. It was thrilling, messy, and featured a wonderful winning goal by Victor Osimhen, which was just about the most expected outcome in an unexpected showdown.