Better to finish first or second in the CL groups?

With 2 matches to go, it is not clear that this time it is better to win your group. The new rules made for a strange situation. Some predictions about how it could end:

Seeded: Arsenal, Benfica, Barcelona, Atletico, Monaco, Dortmund, Leicester, Sevilla
Unseeded: PSG, Napoli, City, Bayern, Leverkusen, Madrid, Porto, Juve

For example, if Madrid finish second then their pick would be between
Arsenal
Benfica
Monaco
Leicester

way better than the opposite.

For the rest of the teams its less clear, and it depends on how the groups end up. But for cases like that it'd be much better to finish second over first.

Zidane ffs  setting up team to finish second in group purposefully, that's prime Michael Corleone level cunningness right there. Dimwits bashing him smh.

Dude, we avoid PSG, City, Bayern, Leverkusen (german team), Juve

I'm happy we finished 2nd

guest7 wrote:
I'm happy we finished 2nd

You haven't finished 2nd yet and it's not really 100% yet that Juve, PSG, Bayern, and even City will finish 2nd in their groups.

But you said it yourself, there are still two games left to play, 6 points still up for grabs and everything could still change.

Real Madrid could still finish second and meet Bayern, Juventus or City in the knockout rounds.

So to answer your question, if the group stages were to end now, finishing second would be better for Madrid. But that's only if the current standings remain the same.

But who can guarantee that? Remember, Atlético still has to face Bayern at the Allianz Arena and Sevilla still has to face Juventus.

With Bayern having almost double the goal difference of Atlético's, they'll only have to match their head-to-head with them to leapfrog them. 1-0 and they finish top of their group.

As for Juventus, they're only two points behind Sevilla and they still have to face them. That could go either way.

The only heavyweight that is almost guaranteed to top their group is Barça, and that's because they have already played both legs against City and holds a superior head-to-head. And I can't see them dropping points to Celtic or B. MGladbach at Camp Nou.

Its just for discussion. We play Sevilla and top the group if we win, but I'm not sure that it would be the best thing. Probably 50/50 for us.

Groups from A to D are complete now with Arsenal, Napoli, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid finishing as table toppers.

From the unfinished groups, Monaco and Leicester are also mathematically guaranteed to keep first spot, regardless of what happens tonight.

we can also add to them Juventus as an almost-guaranteed table topper because I really can't see them dropping points to Zagreb at home, with Sevilla having a very tough clash tonight away against Lyon.

So that leaves only Madrid and Dortmund in the fighting pit.

Scenario A: we top our group

Possible opponents: PSG, Benfica, City, Bayern, Leverkusen, Porto/København, Lyon( in case they beat Sevilla by two goals or more).

Scenario B: We finish second

Possible opponents: Arsenal, Napoli, Monaco, Leicester, Juventus.

Finishing first looks alot better now. A few tricky teams if we finish 2nd

Depends on which group you are. For Arsenal it's better to finish first:

Benfica, Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, Sevilla/Lyon, Porto/Copenhagen

vs

Napoli, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Monaco, Real Madrid, Juventus

No thanks, I'll stick with the group winners

With BVB finishing top ahead of Real, it's safe to say finishing 2nd for us isn't worse at all than finishing 1st would have been.

Possible opponents for us:

Arsenal, Napoli, Barca, Monaco, Leicester, Juve

Had we won the group:

PSG, Lisboa, City, Real, Sevilla, Porto

This latter batch of possible opponents is arguably tougher, all in all.