It is Spain’s best match against the German football kings in the final round of the Champions League.

A rematch of last season’s finale between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund headlines on Tuesday, before Barcelona host Bayern Munich on Wednesday in the next chapter of what has been a fairly one-sided rivalry in Europe’s top club competition.

All four teams have been European champions over the past thirty years and they have made mixed starts in this season’s new format.

Dortmund won both opening matches: 3-0 at Club Brugge 7-1 at home to Celtic – to be the early leader and top scorer of the competition phase, in which all 36 teams play eight matches: four at home and four away.

Just like last season, when he reached the Champions League final against all odds before losing to Madrid, Dortmund have come far more impressive in Europe than in the Bundesliga. After beating Celtic, Dortmund lost at Union Berlin four days later.

Madrid, meanwhile, suffered a surprise 1-0 defeat at Lille, the defending champions’ first defeat in the competition since the semi-finals of the 2022/2023 season.

In fact, the second round produced some shockers, including Bayern’s 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa, ending their unbeaten run under new coach Vincent Kompany.

Now Bayern head to Barcelona looking for a seventh straight victory in their head-to-head clash, a streak that includes a humiliating 8-2 defeat to Barca in the 2020 quarter-finals. Hansi Flick was in charge of Bayern that night and is now the coach of Barcelona.

Man City record

If Manchester City beat Sparta Prague at home on Wednesday, the English champions will set the record for consecutive unbeaten games in the competition’s history – even dating back to before 1992 and all the way to the European Cup era.

City are currently 25 games unbeaten and tied with Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United team between 2007 and 2009.

The last defeat for Pep Guardiola’s side in the Champions League was the 3-1 loss to Real Madrid in the second leg of the 2022 semi-finals, which cost City a place in the final that season.

Since then, City have won 17 games and drawn eight, having won the competition in 2022-2023 and being eliminated on penalties by Madrid in 2023-2024 after consecutive quarter-final draws.

An unlikely high flyer

Of the seven teams with a maximum of six points, Brest is undoubtedly the most surprising.

This is the unheralded French team’s European debut – in any competition – after an unexpected third-place finish in Ligue 1 last season. Things couldn’t have gone better.

A 2-1 win over Austrian champions Sturm Graz was followed by a 4-0 thrashing of another Austrian team, Salzburg, in the second round.

They will be the easiest opponents Brest will face. Now the hard work begins, with the next German champions Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday.

Leverkusen does not go to Brest, a beautiful port city in Brittany, but to Guingamp, about 114 kilometers away. That’s because Brest stadium does not meet UEFA standards, so the home games have been moved.

Bad start

With each team playing eight matches in the new league system, opening with back-to-back losses is not the nightmare start it would have been in the old format when there were six matches per team in the group stage.

Still, AC Milan, Leipzig, Girona, Salzburg, Sturm Graz, Slovan Bratislava, Young Boys and Red Star Belgrade will be desperate to get at least one point on the board in the third round.

Salzburg and Young Boys haven’t even scored a goal.

One of the eight useless teams is sure to get off the ground, with tournament newcomer Girona hosting Slovan Bratislava on Tuesday.

However, Leipzig could easily be on zero points after three games when Liverpool visit on Wednesday – a match that has seen more intrigue since former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was appointed head of global football at Red Bull, whose international network of clubs also includes Leipzig. .

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Steve Douglas is there https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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AP football: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer