UCL searches spike as Manchester City returns to face PSG in Champions League
Searches for UCL are climbing as Champions League Matchday 2 brings Manchester City back to the competition against PSG and Jose Mourinho back to Rome, this time coaching Real Madrid.
People are typing UCL into Google because Champions League Matchday 2 is here, with games spread across Tuesday and Wednesday this week, according to CBS Sports. Matchday 1 ran over three days, but the league phase is back to the standard two-day window for the rest of the schedule.
The search spike centers on two things happening Wednesday. Manchester City will play their first Champions League match since being found guilty of 114 financial charges, taking on Paris Saint-Germain. And Jose Mourinho returns to AS Roma, except this time he is on the other side, coaching Real Madrid.
Per CBS Sports, City's first game since the financial charges verdict actually came before this, at Liverpool on Sunday, and that match reportedly went more than well for City, though no score for that Liverpool game is detailed in the report. Now City turns to Matchday 2 against PSG on Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET.
The Wednesday slate CBS Sports lists is loaded. Besides City-PSG and Mourinho's Roma return, Aston Villa hosts Fenerbahce, Feyenoord plays Como 1907, Liverpool travels to LASK, and Borussia Dortmund visits Bodo/Glimt. Tuesday's games, also 3 p.m. ET kickoffs mostly, include Atletico Madrid hosting Manchester United and Bayern Munich at Viking FK.
None of this week's Matchday 2 games have kicked off as of this writing. The City-PSG match and the Roma-Real Madrid match are both scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 3 p.m. ET. Nothing beyond the schedule itself is confirmed for those games.
Tuesday's card runs through the afternoon as well, with Arsenal hosting Lille, Inter Milan facing Club Brugge, and Galatasaray taking on Barcelona, all at 3 p.m. ET, according to the CBS Sports listing.
What happens next
The league phase keeps running until Jan. 27. CBS Sports notes Matchday 3 already has fixtures lined up for Tuesday, Oct. 20, including Fenerbahce against Slavia Praha and Roma against Slovan Bratislava.
When the league phase wraps on Jan. 27, the top eight finishers advance straight to the knockout round. The next 16 teams in the standings move into a playoff round before the knockouts begin, per the report.
Facts per CBS Sports. Opinion is the taproom's.