The men’s Champions League returns this week after what feels like an extraordinarily long winter break, exacerbated by an entire World Cup taking place since the last time a ball was kicked in Europe’s top club competition.
With six rounds of matches completed in just nine weeks, all 96 group-stage games were done and dusted by Nov. 2 last year as 32 teams were whittled down to 16 for the knockout phase.
– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)
The Champions League then took a back seat while the world watched Lionel Messi lead Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar, before club football once again returned to the fore last month.
As the round of 16 gets underway, here’s a quick refresher of some notable events that unfolded in the Champions League prior to its 3 1/2-month hiatus.
1. Messi broke yet another UCL record (Oct. 5)
🥇 Messi finishes a sweeping move in style to win Goal of the Week 🙌#UCLGOTW | @Heineken pic.twitter.com/IuPXhG9K6Z
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) October 6, 2022
Speaking of Messi, the Paris Saint-Germain forward warmed up for the World Cup by breaking yet more new ground in the Champions League.
Benfica were on the receiving end as Messi wrote his name into the history books once again by scoring a goal against his 40th different opposing team, becoming the first-ever player to do so in the competition.
The 35-year-old scored a delightful first-time effort in a 1-1 draw against the Portuguese side in early October, less than a month after Israeli outfit Maccabi Haifa had the misfortune of becoming his 39th victims.
2. Rudiger put his head where it hurt (Oct. 11)
Things didn’t go quite so smoothly for poor old Antonio Rudiger who finished the group-stage trip to play Shakhtar Donestk with his head in bandages despite scoring the vital goal that saw Real Madrid qualify for the knockouts.
In the act of scoring a 95th-minute equaliser against Shakhtar to send Madrid through, the German centre-back was involved in a heavy head-on-head collision with young goalkeeper Anatolii Trubin and subsequently departed the pitch in a daze with large blood stains all over his ice-white shirt.
