Champions League returns: City v PSG on Wednesday

The Champions League comes back next week for the second round of the league phase, played across Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 October.

Tuesday opens quietly enough with Lens against Sporting CP and Sabah against Slavia Praha, both at a quarter to seven European time. The rest follow at nine. Galatasaray host Barcelona, Atlético de Madrid take on Manchester United, Arsenal play Lille, Inter face Club Brugge, Leipzig meet PSV Eindhoven, Villarreal host Napoli and Viking welcome Bayern München.

Wednesday has the tie most people will have circled. Manchester City play Paris Saint-Germain, two sides that have spent recent seasons measuring themselves against each other in this competition. Roma host Real Madrid on the same night, Liverpool travel to LASK, and Borussia Dortmund go to Bodø/Glimt, where the pitch and the weather have caused visiting teams more trouble than the fixture list suggests they should.

The rest of Wednesday: Feyenoord against Como, Aston Villa against Fenerbahçe, Shakhtar Donetsk against AEK Athens, Real Betis against Porto and Slovan Bratislava against Stuttgart.

All thirty-six teams sit in a single table rather than in groups. Each plays eight different opponents, the top eight go straight through to the last sixteen, and the sides finishing ninth to twenty-fourth drop into a play-off round to join them. With only one round played, almost nothing is settled, but the table is already worth a look — and it updates here while the matches are on.