Manchester City flirted with a disastrous exit from the Champions League before rallying to beat Club Brugge 3-1 in a must-win game Wednesday and advanced to the knockout phase. M

Bayern Munich is building for the future by snapping up goalkeeper Jonas Urbig from Cologne. The Bavarian powerhouse announced the transfer late Monday.

Ousmane Dembele on Wednesday scored a hat-trick as Paris Saint-Germain romped to a 4-1 win at VfB Stuttgart and qualified for the UEFA Champions League knockout stages.

The two European giants know City are struggling but will still have a sense of dread at maybe having to face Pep Guardiola’s men

Champions League by reaching the knockout stage playoffs with a 12th-place finish after a 3-1 win over Slovan Bratislava on Wednesday.

Bayern Munich still have work to do as they target a top-eight finish in the Champions League. Bayern Munich vs Slovan Bratislava best bets Bayern Munich – 4.5 Asian handicap with bet365

Bayern went from the joy of a resounding 9-2 victory against Dinamo Zagreb to the despair of back-to-back defeats against Aston Villa and Barcelona, before they found some consistency with a run of three successive European wins over Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain and Shakhtar Donetsk.

City will face one of those two European heavyweights in the Champions League next month after scraping through to the play-off round on Wednesday.

LONDON — Here's the state of play after the conclusion of the first stage of the Champions League: Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille, Aston Villa

Plus, how three French teams can get byes, and how one Italian rival could knock another out of the top eight, and more

Manchester City’s reward for sealing their place in the Champions League knockout play-off stage is a tie with either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. Pep Guardiola’s men went into