Champions League Power Rankings: USMNT stars shine; Liverpool and Barça remain at the top while Manchester City implodes

1 Liverpool — It’s a lovely life for Arne Slot, even Mohamed Salah missing a penalty is not enough to stop Liverpool from beating Real Madrid. 2 Barcelona — Barcelona appears, scores goals and then leaves with victories. They are doing enough to prove they are UCL contenders and Robert Lewandowski joined Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as the only players to score 100 or more goals in the Champions League. 3 Bury — It’s not pretty, but Inter continues to do the job. When other top teams are struggling, they score 1-0 wins and move up the table. 4 Arsenal +1 By dispatching Sporting CP with ease, Arsenal are showing that they should be considered among the main contenders for a Champions League title at this stage. 5 Atalanta +1 Conceding their first goal of this Champions League campaign, Atalanta took it personally and scored six goals, with Mateo Retegui and Charles De Ketelaere each scoring doubles. 6 Bayer Leverkusen +5 Florian Wirtz is showing why he is one of the best young players in the world with a brace and an assist as Leverkusen bounced back from a heavy defeat to Liverpool. 7 Lille +2 Goals are coming from everywhere for Lille these days, this time it was Ngal Ayel Mukau who scored a brace from midfield to maintain Lille’s good run in the competition. 8 Bayern Munich +2 Bayern managed a goal in the first half to keep a clean sheet and beat Paris Saint-Germain. It’s nothing special, but it’s also better than losing points. 9 Monaco -2 Struggling to get a man back to take a point off Benfica, Monaco are among the French teams ensuring that, even with PSG’s problems, there will be plenty of French representation in the knockout stages. 10 Lisbon Sports Club -2 Playing their first Champions League match without Ruben Amorim, things did not go well for Sporting CP, but they are still well positioned to progress to the next stage of the competition. 11 city ​​of manchester -7 Wow. It’s crisis mode in Manchester. Becoming the first team to fail to win a Champions League match after leading by three goals in the 75th minute, there isn’t much going right for City at this stage as they are now winless in six matches in all competitions. 12 Milan +2 At this point, can Christian Pulisic be cloned? The American was everywhere for Milan as he scored once again, but Milan’s defense tried to waste the game. 13 Borussia Dortmund +3 Doing business away from home in Europe is not an easy task, but Dortmund visited Croatia and achieved another victory in the UCL. A job well done. 14 Atlético de Madrid +2 It has been a long time since Atleti have given a team an absolute rout. Julián Álvarez scored a double, but they still need much more to establish themselves as UCL contenders. 15 real Madrid -3 Kylian Mbappé returned to his favorite left side against Liverpool and responded by missing a penalty. Along with City, Los Blancos are falling down the table and need to right the ship and get healthy. 16 Villa Aston -3 Villa had a late goal disallowed, but they didn’t play a game they deserved to win. 17 Benfica +4 A late win in Monaco is a great result for Benfica to get their Champions League campaign back on track. 18 Brest -3 Traveling to Barcelona and losing 3-0 happens to the best teams in the world, so it will depend on how they respond to this. 19 Juventus -1 Getting a point is good, but having to be rescued by the referees to get it is not. Nothing in this UCL campaign has been pretty for Juventus, but they will take what they can get. 20 PSV — A club that is on a roller coaster and it is difficult to know which is the real PSV. They fought to equalize against Shakhtar Donetsk through Malik Tillman and Ricardo Pepi, but needed the help of a red card to do so. 21 Celtic -2 Playing at home against a team like Brugge, you need the three points and Celtic couldn’t get them. 22 Paris Saint Germain — Oh no. Still outside the top 24 of the table, this is the point at which panic should begin to invade Luis Enrique and PSG. 23 Club Bruges +2 Brugge would have wanted three points in Scotland, but a draw away at least keeps them among the top 24 teams. 24 Dinamo Zagreb -1 Hosting Dortmund is a difficult task and while Zagreb prevented things from getting out of control, they were unable to secure a point when necessary. 25 Stuttgart -1 With a great chance to overcome struggling teams on a trip to Serbia, Stuttgart conceded five goals. Not great. 26 Girona — Iván Martín may have failed in the tournament so far with his 0.93 xG shot not finding the net. Girona’s maiden voyage in the UCL could soon come to an end. 27 Feyenoord — Wow, coming back from 3-0 down against City after the 75th minute is a great result as Feyenoord are slowly finding their footing. 28 Red Star +6 What a victory over Stuttgart. Silas Mvumpa scored and assisted on another goal conceded by the German team and everyone was involved in their first UCL victory in more than five years. 29 Sparta Prague -1 It was a fun start as UCL went undefeated in their first two games. It hasn’t been much fun since then. 30 SK Sturm Graz +5 It probably should have been a draw against Girona, but Sturm Graz will be happy to get their first win of the campaign. 31 Shakhtar Donetsk -1 Not being able to take advantage of a two-goal lead after losing a man, allowing two goals in stoppage time for a loss is a detrimental result for the Ukrainian team. 32 RB Leipzig -3 One of the big teams on alert, RB Leipzig, has gone five games without a win in the league phase. What is happening? 33 RB Salzburg -2 Another day, another tough defeat for the Austrian team. 34 Bologna -2 One day Bologna will kick off their UCL campaign, but today was not that day. 35 young boys -2 At least they scored a goal. It was fun, but conceding six to Atalanta was not. 36 Bratislava Slovakia — They scored a few goals but still couldn’t clean things up defensively, leading to another loss.