Paris Saint-Germain × Sl. Bratislava · Champions League

Paris Saint-Germain host Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League on Wednesday 9 September at 20:00 BST. It is the kind of fixture the league phase now produces regularly: a club at the top of European football receiving a national champion that reached this stage through qualifying, with budgets that do not compare in any meaningful way.

The mismatch does not make the game disposable, and the format explains why. Because there is a single table, Paris Saint-Germain must turn favouritism into points and into goal difference, which is what separates level clubs at the end. For Slovan Bratislava the stage is the reward in itself: every match against opposition of this size measures how far Slovak football can compete.