The Champions League last 16 concludes this week, with the remaining quarterfinal berths being decided. Below, we dissect the biggest talking points from Tuesday’s action in Europe’s premier club competition.

By the numbers: Trying to make sense of Haaland

Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Alan Shearer, and every other striker who’s lit up English and European football throughout history, look away now. Erling Haaland has his eyes on your scoring records.

The Manchester City superstar netted five times in his team’s 7-0 obliteration of RB Leipzig, showcasing levels of anticipation and narrow-mindedness that only the best players in his position have possessed.

Sometimes, only numbers can paint the full picture. Here are the best stats and facts to surface after an iconic outing from Haaland:

1 – The Norwegian scored five goals in a game for the first time in his senior career.

2 – Haaland now has two Champions League hat-tricks to his name. Brazilian great Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, and Wayne Rooney managed only one apiece.

3 – Haaland became just the third player to notch five goals in a Champions League fixture. Messi was the first to achieve the feat when he spearheaded Barcelona’s 7-1 rout of Bayer Leverkusen in 2012. Luiz Adriano matched Messi’s outburst in Shakhtar Donetsk’s 7-0 triumph at BATE Borisov in 2014.

5 – The former Borussia Dortmund marksman has scored three or more goals in five matches for Manchester City this season. That’s three more than any other player hailing from one of Europe’s top five leagues.

25 – Haaland is only 25 matches into his Champions League career. The competition’s records appear to be at the mercy of Haaland and Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappe.

30 – The second goal of Haaland’s evening made him the youngest and fastest player to reach 30 Champions League goals.

33 – The 22-year-old’s total Champions League haul of 33 is three more than both Samuel Eto’o and Wayne Rooney mustered during their glittering careers.

94 – Tommy Johnson’s 38 goals during the 1928-29 campaign stood as the single-season scoring record by a Manchester City player for 94 years. Haaland has beaten that tally in March, and he could still play in 19 more matches this campaign.

100% – Each of Haaland’s eight efforts at Leipzig’s goal was on target. He’s unerringly accurate, and he won’t stop trying to score. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” reads the famous quote often attributed to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky.

Guardiola ensured City took control

Pep Guardiola previously stressed the importance of his side controlling the matches against Leipzig. “We don’t have the team to compete with them in the transitions, they are better than us, they are faster and quicker, except Kyle (Walker) and Erling (Haaland),” he said after the first leg, according to The Athletic’s Sam Lee.

Guardiola’s brave modifications for the relentless win over Leipzig helped his team take control. City’s goalscorer from the 1-1 first-leg draw, Riyad Mahrez, was on the bench alongside Walker, whose advanced position on the right flank was a key element of City’s tactics in the opening fixture. Phil Foden was surprisingly among the substitutes after averaging almost seven key passes per game since his reintroduction to the lineup two weeks earlier. An off-color Kevin De Bruyne started in Foden’s place.

The four center-backs protected City from counter-attacks at the Etihad Stadium. Rodri intelligently slotted between Ruben Dias and Manuel Akanji when extra protection was required or to assist with build-up play from the back. John Stones split his duties between right-back and defensive midfield, and Nathan Ake was solid defensively. Some of Ake’s play down the left proved how much he’s growing from an attacking perspective under Guardiola.

Ahead of this versatile yet solid defensive setup, the risky play of Mahrez – one of City’s best Champions League performers in recent seasons – was sacrificed to ensure the team lost the ball less frequently. It worked: City had 49% possession in the second half of the first leg, but that rose to over 66% for the full 90 minutes of the second leg.

When Guardiola makes unexpected changes to his lineup or approach and Manchester City don’t get a result, he’s accused of overthinking his tactics. It must irritate the Spaniard when similarly imaginative tweaks lead to a victory and don’t offset that negativity with widespread critical acclaim. His selection and subsequent in-game management in last month’s trip to Arsenal, and his lineup for Leipzig’s visit, are recent examples of Guardiola’s risks paying off handsomely.

Inter’s foot soldiers pave the way to quarterfinals

Inter certainly needed luck to reach the Champions League quarterfinals. Porto had a shot cleared off the goal line and hit the post twice in second-half stoppage time Tuesday, falling just a goal short of forcing extra time in this nerve-racking last-16 tie. Had they played an additional half-hour at the Estadio Dragao, Porto, not Inter, would’ve had the momentum, and few would’ve bet against them to advance.

But that didn’t happen. Porto waited too long to create such excellent chances. They spent most of the 90 minutes patiently plotting a path through Inter’s back line. But a pathway never emerged. Porto were too casual for too long.

Inter, on the other hand, were all too happy to absorb pressure, knowing they could rest on their 1-0 aggregate lead from the first leg. Head coach Simone Inzaghi, who watched his team lose against relegation-threatened Spezia last Friday, didn’t need to take much of a risk anyway. Without Otavio – the Brazilian forward who was sent off in Milan and suspended for Tuesday’s decisive clash – Porto lacked any sort of cutting edge up front.

So the Nerazzurri simply held their line. Matteo Darmian, Inter’s unsung hero this season, was excellent on the right of Inter’s three-man defense. His tackle on Galeno in the closing stages was one of several impressive plays by the Italian defender. Federico Dimarco’s block on Evanilson also prevented Porto from gaining a lifeline earlier in the second half. And when Porto fired crosses into the penalty area, Francesco Acerbi and Alessandro Bastoni cleared the lines. Henrikh Mkhitaryan led all players with three tackles and three interceptions, and Hakan Calhanoglu, as industrious as ever in his newly acquired deep-lying role, remained calm amid all the chaos around him.

So maybe they earned their luck. They played like a team that was desperate to progress. And now they’re through to the quarterfinals for the first time in 12 years.

Quick free-kicks

KDB back to his best

De Bruyne’s below-par performances were a talking point before the return fixture with Leipzig, and he answered his doubters in spectacular fashion. Haaland demands most of the attention after his five goals against Leipzig, but De Bruyne’s determined display featured four key passes, 75 touches, and 14 crosses. His sublime, swerving finish in the dying embers of the game was the least he deserved. His emphatic return to form should sound a warning to Premier League title rivals Arsenal and the teams battling for Champions League glory.

Is a Milan derby possible in the quarterfinals?

It certainly is. Unlike in previous rounds, UEFA allows teams from the same country to face each other in the quarterfinals. That means AC Milan, who dispatched Tottenham Hotspur earlier in the round of 16, could meet crosstown rivals Inter in the next phase of the competition. They last met in the Champions League in 2005 when Milan ousted Inter 5-0 on aggregate in a tie marred by a flare-throwing incident involving former Milan goalkeeper Dida. Milan and Inter also squared off in the semifinals in 2003, with the Rossoneri advancing on away goals despite playing at the San Siro on both occasions. However, the Nerazzurri have form on their side. They’ve won three of the last five derbies, including a 3-0 shellacking in the Italian Super Cup in January.

What, exactly, did VAR see?

It was ultimately moot because of Haaland’s otherworldly scoring exploits – and it wouldn’t have changed the outcome of City advancing – but the decision to award the home side a penalty for what looked, on multiple replays, like a non-existent handball by Benjamin Henrichs deserves scrutiny, if for no other reason than to hold officials accountable. Players will almost always remonstrate with referees when there’s even a sniff of winning a penalty in their team’s favor. For none of the City contingent to react in the moment was a telltale sign that this was a questionable call, at best. The crowd didn’t protest the play, either. Replays on the broadcast weren’t even conclusive that Rodri’s header inside the box even deflected off the Leipzig player’s arm. The VAR, Alejandro Hernandez, must have seen an angle that wasn’t shared publicly for him to urge colleague Slavko Vincic to check the monitor. Henrichs said after the crushing 7-0 defeat that talking about VAR was pointless and that Leipzig “need to talk about our own performance” instead. In the grand scheme of the match, he’s right, but this is another in an ever-growing list of debatable VAR-aided decisions.

Stat of the day

Rarefied – and yellow-tinted – air.

Tweet of the day

Finally, something Erling Haaland seemingly can’t do …

The expanded 2026 World Cup will feature 12 four-team groups and 104 games in total, FIFA announced Tuesday.

The governing body formally approved the revised format for the supersized event during a council meeting Tuesday in Kigali, Rwanda. The tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will be the largest World Cup in history with its expansion from 32 to 48 participating nations.

The entire 2026 event will span 56 days between “rest, release, and tournament days,” FIFA said. The final will be held on July 19, 2026.

Play itself is expected to take place over 39 days, report Matt Slater and David Ornstein of The Athletic, which would make the 2026 World Cup the longest ever.

To facilitate the inclusion of extra games without making sweeping alterations to the schedule, FIFA will reduce the pre-tournament preparation period from 23 to 16 days, according to Slater and Ornstein.

FIFA initially planned to use 16 three-team groups in 2026, with the top two nations from each section advancing to a 32-team knockout round. Under that format, the tournament would’ve featured 80 matches in total. The men’s World Cup has been a 64-game tournament since 1998.

But concerns over that plan, initially green-lit in 2017, forced FIFA to rethink its approach, particularly after the final set of matches in the existing four-team group format at the recent edition in Qatar generated consistent drama and excitement.

Using groups consisting of just three teams would have eliminated the simultaneous group finales, a popular World Cup feature, and would create an opportunity for two teams to collude if they both needed a specific result in their last group match, just as West Germany and Austria did in the infamous 1982 match dubbed the “Disgrace of Gijon.”

“The revised format mitigates the risk of collusion and ensures that all the teams play a minimum of three matches while providing balanced rest time between competing teams,” FIFA said of its decision to alter the format.

With 48 teams split into quartets, the eight best third-place finishers will join the top two teams from each group in the 32-team knockout stage.

It’s unclear how the allocation of matches between the three host countries will be adjusted; the United States was set to stage 60 games under the previous format, with Canada and Mexico handed 10 each.

The Champions League last 16 rumbled on this week, as the first four quarterfinalists were decided. Below, we dissect the biggest talking points from this week’s action in Europe’s premier club competition.

Lifeless PSG fail on biggest stage again

“We have a game plan, and we have Kylian.”

Paris Saint-Germain manager Christophe Galtier was supremely confident that the mere presence of his star forward would make all the difference. In fairness, Mbappe’s impact after coming off the bench in the first leg against Bayern Munich would generate that outlook; he was an immediate menace who spooked the Bayern backline every time he touched the ball.

There was none of that same fear factor on Wednesday, though, as Bayern were too assured, too composed, and, ultimately, too good. Aside from Matthijs de Ligt’s goal-line clearance, which was the result of a brutal unforced error from Yann Sommer, PSG didn’t really look like scoring in Bavaria. Bayern were full value for their place in the quarterfinals. PSG, in a match they needed to win to advance, were mostly flat, especially in the second half. Instead of showing some kind of urgency, they wilted. Bayern, if not for some very tight offside calls, could have won by more, too.

It’s another insipid and uninspiring end to a Champions League campaign for PSG, a club built with the obvious intention of winning this competition, but one that, despite the presence of Mbappe and Lionel Messi, looks nowhere close right now. PSG have been eliminated from this stage of the tournament in five of the last seven seasons. Yes, the draw has often been unkind, but you lose the benefit of the doubt when you spend the GDP of a small nation on talent and continue to repeatedly fall short.

As it turns out, PSG badly missed the presence of divisive star Neymar. In the wake of his season-ending ankle injury, there were some suggestions that his absence wouldn’t actually hurt – some went so far as to opine that giving Mbappe and Messi more volume on the ball without Neymar would actually be good for the team as a whole. Wednesday was a glaring example that, for all his detractors and antics on the pitch, Neymar’s creativity is irreplaceable.

Without the Brazilian available to pick up the ball in the hole and run at defenders, thus creating space for his illustrious teammates, Mbappe and Messi had to do it themselves. Bayern, time and time again, would eventually crowd out the two stars, even if they were initially able to skip beyond a couple of challenges. PSG, yet again, looked like a collection of individuals. Having just two of them instead of three, and faced with an exceptional opponent, was too much to overcome.

Milan’s weakness is now their strength

AC Milan couldn’t do anything right in January. Nearly every chance they conceded resulted in a goal. The Rossoneri lost by three goals, four, and even five. Instead of avoiding the problem – going on the all-out attack, daring the opponent to outscore them – the Rossoneri addressed their issues head-on.

Now, they’re as solid as ever. They conceded just four shots on target to Tottenham Hotspur over their entire last-16 Champions League tie and advanced to the quarterfinals on the back of rock-solid, no-nonsense defending and quality goalkeeping from Mike Maignan.

Malick Thiaw, the 21-year-old center-back signed from Schalke for a reported €6 million, played with the personality of a veteran during Wednesday’s goalless draw, jumping into the fray to cut out passes and roughhouse Tottenham attackers. Fikayo Tomori, who endured a horrific two games against former club Chelsea earlier in the Champions League, redeemed himself in London with an impeccable display of tackling. Pierre Kalulu also showed maturity on the right side of Milan’s three-man defense, showing he’s overcome his own midseason hangover.

Head coach Stefano Pioli was perfectly content to roll with a back four until the bottom of his team fell out in January. It was a blessing in disguise. At 21, 25, and 23 years old, respectively, Thiaw, Tomori, and Kalulu could form the basis of Milan’s next title challenge. And to think they only came together out of necessity.

Executive director and club legend Paolo Maldini has never liked playing with such a defensive formation, but he admitted Wednesday it had to be done given the sieve his side had become. Having an additional man in defense was the logical, if not fashionable, choice.

It’s not easy to make such a drastic change midseason. It would’ve been easier for Milan to point fingers and place blame as their Serie A title defense unraveled. But Pioli made an ambitious call, ditching the 4-2-3-1 formation that was as much a part of his coaching existence as anything else and trusting his players to adjust on the fly.

So what if it looked ugly on Wednesday? It did the job, and Milan are through to the next round of the Champions League for the first time in 11 years.

What’s the point of Conte’s Spurs?

Tottenham won’t win a trophy this season. That’s now a certainty. Eliminated from the FA Cup, League Cup, and the Champions League – and a further 18 points back of Premier League leaders Arsenal – Spurs have to make sure they finish in the top four.

With Liverpool on their coattails, that may even prove a step too far.

What has happened to this team? When Tottenham appointed Antonio Conte as manager in November 2021, it seemed like they had finally arrived as a big club.

It appears Conte’s arrival was nothing more than a red herring.

It just hasn’t worked out. How could it? Here’s a short-term manager who’s only interested in winning now and almost always ready to jump ship when things don’t go his way. And here’s Tottenham, a club built on youth and patience, led by a pennywise board of directors that only recently opened its wallet, if only to appease Conte.

Tottenham spent the money, just not on the right players. Conte barely gave a chance to full-back Djed Spence, signed from Middlesbrough last summer in a deal reportedly worth up to £20 million, before allowing him to leave in January. The coach openly questioned whether 26-year-old midfielder Yves Bissouma, a quality signing from Brighton & Hove Albion, was a tactical fit. Spurs dropped big money on left-back Destiny Udogie as well but preferred to leave him on loan at Udinese. And no matter how well Pape Matar Sarr played the first leg of the last-16 tie against Milan, Conte made sure his deputy, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, returned to his usual holding midfield position as soon as he could.

This is unquestionably a bad pairing of club and manager. Tottenham should be building toward something, and instead, they’re regressing as their rivals improve. It must pain club chairman Daniel Levy to see Arsenal doing so well while getting so little out of his multi-billion-pound investment in Tottenham’s new stadium. This team reached the Champions League final in 2019. Now it can’t even score a goal in the round of 16.

Is this progress? Tottenham at least made the knockout stage of the Champions League. Last season, they failed to advance from the group stage of the third-tier Europa Conference League. Surely a team of this stature must aim higher.

It just seems like Tottenham sold the wrong vision of themselves – to their fans and Conte. This is a man you hire to win titles, not oversee a project. Of course, he wants big signings. He wants soldiers, players ready to make an impact. Ironically, it’s more likely the club will lose star players before they gain them.

Chelsea finally find their confidence

For the first half hour of Chelsea’s pivotal Champions League clash against Borussia Dortmund, scoring seemed like the most onerous task in the world. Raheem Sterling panicked when sent through on goal, dawdling when more confident strikers would do something – anything – to get the ball out from underneath them. Kai Havertz, who hadn’t scored in any of his last seven matches, struck the post, and the ball somehow skipped across the goal line and out of harm’s way. Chelsea created chances but couldn’t finish any of them.

Then something clicked. Sterling banged one home at what seemed like the 11th time of asking, lifting the heaviness around Stamford Bridge. Havertz retook the penalty he had missed, picking out the same bottom right corner he targeted with his first attempt.

In that half-hour stretch, Chelsea were a blur of motion. All they wanted to do was score. Even Marc Cucurella and Kalidou Koulibaly joined the rush. You could hardly tell this side from the one that toiled to get on the scoresheet in previous fixtures. If not for a couple of marginal offside calls, they’d have won 4-0.

This was a long time coming. Chelsea hadn’t scored multiple goals in any match since Dec. 27. Injuries certainly played a part, but for the longest time, the west London side had no attacking impetus. The players didn’t create particularly much or defend particularly well.

But head coach Graham Potter stayed the course. He managed to keep spirits high in training – even while dealing with death threats sent to him and his family. You could tell his players were up for this game. Potter’s back three pressed high, choking Dortmund’s attack before it could really get going. Cucurella was particularly aggressive, playing the kind of defense-splitting passes few expected him to play from the left center-back position.

Chelsea could of course revert to their old habits over the coming games. But that flurry of action in the middle of the game promised better things to come.

Handball rule continues to divide

What exactly is a handball offense? The International Football Association Board, which issues the laws of the game, says a “deliberate” offense occurs when a player moves their hand or arm toward the ball. A player is also at fault if they make their body bigger when their hand or arm is in an unnatural position.

Neither of these things seemed absolutely, undoubtedly true when Chelsea’s Ben Chilwell struck Dortmund defender Marius Wolf’s hand just inside the penalty area. Wolf was turning away when the shot was taken, his head looking in the opposite direction, ruling out deliberate handball. His hand wasn’t necessarily in an unnatural position, either. The German full-back wasn’t flailing his arm or stretching it out to make his body bigger. He was turning away, and his arm was still reasonably close to his body. But because Chilwell shot a yard away, Wolf couldn’t pull his entire arm in time.

Ultimately, match official Danny Makkelie reviewed the footage on the pitchside monitor and determined enough was there to award a penalty. Was Wolf’s arm out? Yes, undoubtedly so, but the circumstances here created reasonable doubt. The original non-call was not, by definition, a clear and obvious error.

The biggest issue here is enforcement. ESPN’s de facto rules official, Dale Johnson, tweeted that “competitions differ” when these calls are made. “I doubt the VAR would give it in the Premier League,” Johnson added.

Former FIFA referee Manuel Grafe expressed frustration at the call as well, saying these interpretations cause a kind of “injustice.” Sometimes they’re given, and other times not.

Quick free-kicks

Live by the sword …

Marco Verratti is a superlative footballer. The diminutive Italian, arguably one of the most underrated players of his generation, does things on the ball that many others can only dream of, especially when dribbling in tight spaces and surrounded by multiple defenders. His ability to wriggle out of seemingly impossible situations inside his own half is largely unmatched. But his is a high-risk game, and while he’s often able to slink away from several opponents with unimpeachable ease, when he does get caught, it usually signals trouble. That’s precisely what happened on Wednesday when Verratti was dispossessed inside his own penalty area by a swarming Bayern Munich press. A few seconds later, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, his former teammate, was celebrating the opening goal of Wednesday’s contest, a tally that effectively ended any hopes PSG had of advancing to the quarterfinals.

Chelsea’s Kepa earning his keep in goal

Kepa Arrizabalaga is redeeming himself one save at a time. It has been a strange and confusing year and a half for Chelsea’s beleaguered goalkeeper, who’s gone from afterthought to undisputed starter without fuss or fanfare. The club had no choice but to turn to Kepa once Edouard Mendy fractured his finger in January. But Mendy was losing his grip on the job before that. The world’s best goalkeeper in 2021 made a series of errors over the following year, and his confidence plummeted. Kepa stepped in and performed reasonably well as the rest of his teammates struggled and made two key saves Tuesday to keep Dortmund at bay when they threatened to take a foothold in the match. The world’s most expensive goalkeeper is in his second act as Chelsea’s No. 1, and it’s worth watching.

Injuries catch up to Dortmund

You can only overcome key injuries for so long. Eventually, they catch up to you. That’s not the sole reason Dortmund were beaten by Chelsea on Tuesday – the Blues, as outlined above, delivered their best performance in months – but, clearly, Dortmund’s list of absentees loomed large at Stamford Bridge. Missing Youssoufa Moukoko and Karim Adeyemi zapped Dortmund of any spark up front or ability to stretch the field and get behind the Chelsea backline. The latter, in particular, lit up the first leg with his spectacular solo goal. That type of gamebreaking ability was absent Tuesday as Dortmund were largely contained by Chelsea’s defense. Losing Julian Brandt in just the fifth minute to an apparent hamstring issue only compounded the matter; the creative German international was one of Dortmund’s best players during their now-snapped unbeaten run to start 2023. As a result, Sebastien Haller was mostly a non-factor in the match, touching the ball just once inside the Chelsea penalty area as Koulibaly neutralized his impact before he was taken off for the more mobile Donyell Malen in the 77th minute.

Benfica can beat anyone

Sleep on Benfica at your peril. Roger Schmidt’s team has been a bulldozer this season, the latest impressive outing coming in a 5-1 romp against Club Brugge that capped a dominant 7-1 aggregate triumph. As a result, the Portuguese giants are off to the Champions League quarterfinals for the second consecutive season. Benfica haven’t missed a beat since selling star midfielder Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea in January; Goncalo Ramos is establishing new records seemingly every time he steps on the pitch, Joao Mario has scored in five consecutive Champions League matches, and the machine that Schmidt has built just keeps chugging along. Benfica, eight points clear at the top of the table in Portugal, will fancy their chances of beating absolutely anybody in the next round, especially at the Estadio da Luz, where they’re unbeaten this season, having won 16 of 18 matches across all competitions.

Parker’s time is up

Scott Parker was an unmitigated disaster at Club Brugge. The Belgian side fired Carl Hoefkens in late December despite a stirring run to the Champions League knockout stages, citing poor domestic form as the reason behind the decision, and then made the surprising decision to appoint Parker as his replacement. They would surely like a mulligan right about now. The Englishman, fired on Wednesday, won just two out of his 12 matches at the helm, with the 7-1 aggregate hammering against Benfica the final humbling setback. Benfica have been steamrolling nearly everything in their path this season, but the meekness of Brugge’s performance Tuesday signified a team totally lacking in confidence. Parker’s squad tumbled to fourth in the Belgian top flight under his watch, a whopping 21 points adrift of first place, and the brightest point of the season – the inspiring Champions League run – ended with a harsh thud. The former Fulham and Bournemouth manager could be waiting for quite a while before getting another top-level gig.

Stat of the week

Tottenham picked the worst possible time for this streak to end.

Tweet of the week

The second half of Wednesday’s match vs. PSG was a wild ride for Choupo-Moting.