Wednesday night represents the culmination of UEFA's grand plan to reshape the Champions League as 36 teams all kick-off at once on the final day of the league phase.
With 18 matches taking place simultaneously, there’s still a surprising amount to be decided in a format that was designed to be a sop to the giants of European football, offering them higher profile glamour ties earlier in the competition.
So has it been a success? That depends on who you’re asking.
Going into the final day 27 of the 36 teams involved have something to play for, be that deciding who tops the table between Liverpool or Barcelona or whether or not 27th-placed Shakhtar Donetsk can complete a mathematical miracle and sneak inside the cut-off point of 24.
Critics of the current model, which is going to stay in situ until at least 2027, will point to the lack of real jeopardy for the bigger clubs.
Sure rival fans have all enjoyed Manchester City hitting the skids this season but a final day win over Club Brugge at the Etihad will still be enough to see them progress to the knockout phase.
Had City endured the kind of campaign that they’ve been through under the previous four-team group format, things would most likely be very different.
Likewise Paris St-Germain will secure their place in the play-offs with a draw against Stuttgart, assuming of course that Dinamo Zagreb don’t manage to beat AC Milan 11-0.
It’s by design that the big guns have been able to weather disastrous spells and still come out the other side with knockout football to look forward to.
The smaller, less glamourous sides will have been weeded out and we’ll end up with a final 24 teams with a super league gloss on them. Indeed of the 12 founding members of the proposed European Super League, nine will likely be present in the knockouts.
Manchester United and Tottenham are the absent former ESL hopefuls, but that’s on account of them failing to qualify and frankly, being rubbish. While Chelsea continue on their seemingly never-ending 'rebuild'.
With little real final day jeopardy remaining in the competition, it's the incentive of finishing inside the top eight and getting a bye to the round of 16, where the real intrigue lies.
Only Liverpool and Barcelona are currently guaranteed to finish inside the top eight with everything else up for grabs, at least on paper, from third-placed Arsenal to Celtic down in 18th.
The likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and AC Milan will all be hoping to sneak inside the top eight and avoid a two-legged tie in the middle of February. Given that teams involved in the group stage will have already played two more games by this point, than they did last year, that’s not an insignificant bonus.
For those sides that miss out on the top eight, their next target will be a seeded play-off berth that comes with finishing from 9th to 16th.
Still with us? Good.
With teams from 17th to 24th unseeded, the highest seeded teams will be paired up with the lowest seeds and drawn on that basis. The sides finishing 9th and 10th will be drawn against the teams that finished 24th and 23rd and so on.
Under the current standings, Juventus or Celtic will face Bayern Munich or Real Madrid, but with so much still to be determined, looking past Wednesday’s action is akin to asking questions of a crystal ball.
UEFA and fans of the current system will point towards the uncertainty of such a complex format as a selling point. They certainly seem to have struck upon a balance that leaves questions going into the final draw while removing a big part of the jeopardy that big teams previously faced.
The final day dead rubbers that were there during the previous system have also been, for the most part, removed and whereas in past years the last day of the group stage was often a formality, this one promises to be a major event in its own right.
Just spare a thought for the brave commentators and TV producers who will be trying to keep the 'as things stand’ tables updated on Wednesday.
Watch Manchester City v Club Brugge in the Champions League on Wednesday from 7.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Digital highlights of games available Wednesday night.
