The final Champions League group stage ended on Wednesday. Next season, UEFA will instead move its premier competition to what is being called a "league stage," in which 36 teams (up from 32) play eight matches against teams from different pots from September to January. Qualification to the knockout round is decided by your overall finish in a single table -- the top eight advance directly to the round of 16, where they'll play winners of ties between teams ranked ninth through 16th and those ranked 17th to 24th.
It's all going to be fine. I don't hate the new format as much as others -- because of the tiered stakes, plenty of teams should have plenty to play for deep into the league stage -- but the existing format was certainly easy and clean. And you could form mini-rivalries by playing teams twice in a small amount of time. For Union Berlin's first Champions League journey, for instance, it certainly meant something to both host European giants Real Madrid and play at the Bernabeu.
Regardless, change is coming, and the 2023-24 group stage was the last of its kind. With the final 16 teams known -- the draw for the first knockout rounds will take place on Monday -- let's look back at how the group stage unfolded, and rank the remaining teams by likelihood of winning it all.