UCL: How PSG lost the top spot of Group H to Benfica at the last minute despite beating Juventus

Paris Saint Germain lost the number one position of Group H in the UCL to Benfica in the last few minutes of Wednesday’s game and can now face Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Real Madrid or Man City in the Round of 16.

The Paris based team where top of the log in group H until the 90 + 2 minute of the match involving Maccabi Haifa and Benfica when Jao Mario scored the 6th goal for the Portuguese club to make it 1-6 in Israel.

PSG beat Juventus 2-1 in Turin while Benfica beat Maccabi Haifa 6-1 away.

These results meant that both teams had the same points (14) and they had the same head to head, after playing 1-1 both at the Parc de Princes and Estadio da Luz.

Benfica was ranked top of the table using the seventh tie breaker after the first six couldn’t break the ties.

Equal points ✅

Equal number of points in Head-Head✅

Equal number of Head – Head Goal Difference ✅

Equal number of Head – Head Goal Scored ✅

Equal number of Group Stage Goal Difference ✅

Equal number of goals scored in all group stage matches ✅

Number of away goals in group stage matches is not equal ❌

Benfica finish top of the group with more group stage away goals than PSG.

However, in a more extreme cases when the teams are still tied, here is what happens:

the next set of rules are group stage wins and group stage away wins. The next tiebreaker is disciplinary record and the final tiebreaker is UEFA coefficient, which is an all-encompassing number the association assigns to each club based on its overall track record. The tiebreaker rules will never get to this point unless every single group stage match ends in a 0-0 draw with no disciplinary actions.