Stars sparkling at their best, the big guns locked in with each other, football at it’s premium best and fans just couldn’t have enough of the Champions League. That is just the group stage, but the Champion League’s glorified version was at display and the football would only get better with the knockout stages closing in.

But the group stages did left us with some heartbreaks, ask Frenkie de Jong.

The teams who have qualified:

PSG (Group A)

Bayern Munich (Group B)

Manchester City (Group C)

Juventus (Group D)

Liverpool (Group E, holders)

Barcelona (Group F)

RB Leipzig (Group G)

Valencia (Group H)

Real Madrid (Group A)

Tottenham (Group B)

Atalanta (Group C)

Atletico Madrid (Group D)

Napoli (Group E)

Borussia Dortmund (Group F)

Lyon (Group G)

Chelsea (Group H)

The group stages sprung some real shockers with teams like Atalanta qualifying for the knockout stages. They lost three of their group stage matches and still qualified, the first team ever to do so. While teams like Inter Milan getting knocked out. Antonio Conte’s men are leading the charts in Serie A but failed to qualify after loosing their deciding match against a fairly weekend Barcelona.

Bayern Munich was a surprise package too. Though they surprised us in a positive way with the German side winning all of their group stage matches. They were the only team to not drop a point in the group stages. While the regulars like Juventus, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Paris Saint Germain and the current European Champions Liverpool, all qualified with rather ease.

One of the giants who did struggle a lot were Atletico Madrid with the Spanish side almost scratching their way to qualification. While last year’s finalist Tottenham Hotspurs along with Napoli and Borussia Dortmund didn’t had a comfortable journey too. However last year’s semi finalists missed the cut altogether as they lost their deciding match to a spirited Valencia team.

In all, Champions League, the biggest carnival or footballing talent, didn’t fail to make a mark and has left us all anticipating for the next rounds.