Champions League fixtures today – your guide to Wednesday’s games

After two decades, more than 2,000 matches and 5,000 goals, Wednesday brings the final batch of Champions League group stage games in their current format.

From 2024/25 onwards, Europe’s premier club competition will include four more teams and two extra games for each side. La Liga president Javier Tebas dramatically warned: “The new Champions League is the death of the national competitions.”

Before the Premier League and its European counterparts crumble, the final four groups of this season’s Champions League have to be decided.

Here’s everything you need to know about the end of an era.

UEFA Champions League fixtures – Wednesday 13 December

Manchester City brought an end to their “mini-crisis” in the Premier League with a scratchy victory over Luton Town on Sunday but nobody can fault their European form.

If City were to defeat winless Red Star in Belgrade on Wednesday, they would become just the second English side to ever win all six group-stage games – a feat Pep Guardiola has never achieved at any club in his managerial career.

Anticlimactically, every position in Group G has already been decided. RB Leipzig are guaranteed to finish second while Young Boys can be content with a third-place spot that earns them passage into the Europa League.

Riding high on the back of a 3-2 victory over Borussia Dortmund on the weekend, RB are ominous hosts having scored 14 goals across their last four home matches.

Lazio could finish top of Group E with a victory in midweek, leapfrogging their hosts and current group leaders Atletico Madrid in the process. Yet, only two members of Maurizio Sarri’s squad have scored more Champions League goals this season than their goalkeeper Ivan Provedel. The Italian shot-stopper (and taker) famously netted a 95th-minute equaliser when Atletico travelled to Rome in September.

Both clubs are assured of a place in the knockouts but Lazio may need to look beyond the gloved figure between the posts for goals if they are to get anything in Madrid.

This fixture once graced the final of the European Cup. Half a century later, both clubs know that this year’s Champions League adventure will end before Christmas.

Celtic – the team that lost the 1970 showpiece – have taken the lead in both of their previous European fixtures at Parkhead this season but are yet to claim a victory. In fact, Celtic haven’t won a Champions League game in Glasgow since Neil Lennon oversaw a 3-1 win against Ajax in 2013.

Trust Group F, the Champions League’s last great ‘group of death’, to deliver some drama this Wednesday. Borussia Dortmund may already be qualified but favourites Paris Saint-Germain are facing the prospect of a humiliating early exit.

PSG have never failed to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages under their current state ownership, last suffering such ignominy in 2004. Yet, if Luis Enrique’s side do not defeat Dortmund in front of the Yellow Wall, their fate will be decided by the other game in Group F.

The biggest game of each club’s season could not have come at a worse time. Newcastle United’s injury crisis compounded by Eddie Howe’s full-throttle approach has emptied the tanks of the few players not squeezed into the Tyneside treatment room.

While Howe’s job security is not in doubt, a dark cloud has gathered over AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli. The out-of-form Italian giants have not won a match on the road since the October international break, shipping ten goals in four games.

If either side is to qualify, they have to win Wednesday’s match at St James’ Park. Newcastle can progress even if PSG draw away to Dortmund while Milan need the French side to lose.

With Barcelona already through to the knockouts, the final qualification spot in Group H will be decided at the Dragao. Despite their nomadic status, Shakhtar Donetsk boast the same record as Porto; nine points from five games.

However, Porto can qualify with a draw after defeating Shakhtar in the reverse fixture to start the campaign. The visitors can lean upon a rock-solid defensive rearguard in their qualification quest, boasting six clean sheets from their last seven matches.

One of the few convincing performances Barcelona have been able to string together this season came in a five-star showing against Antwerp in September.

As the following months have shown, that result may have been dictated by the overawed visitors rather than Xavi’s misfiring side. Antwerp are the only club in this season’s competition to have lost their first five Champions League games.

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