Get ready for the chaos of Champions League finals’

Man City among the giants facing crunch matches tonight

- MIGUEL DELANEY

For the first time in this season’s new Champions League, players and managers are using one of those definitive football terms about their fixtures. Pep Guardiola described Manchester City’s match with Club Brugge tonight as “our final”. Unai Emery has been saying similar about Aston Villa’s home game against Celtic, with Luis Enrique echoing as much ahead of Paris Saint-Germain’s showdown in Stuttgart.

There is finally clarity about what teams need to do, which hasn’t always been the case in this new group stage. Many players found the middle of the campaign quite strange, because the open format meant the stakes of any individual match weren’t obvious. No more. This final day is what it is all about, and what it’s all been building up to.

Rather than a “final”, though, this last day is going to be unlike anything the game has ever witnessed. Tonight will be a true live TV event and appointment viewing for fans around the world.

It is also a very modern development in that the place to be won’t be at the big match where the best action is happening, unless you’re a club supporter. The place to be will be in front of a screen (or several), because something just as important is going to happen elsewhere.

Football has never really had that to this degree before. Even on the final day of a Premier League season or a World Cup group stage, the real emotion is in the stadium. Here, there’s just going to be too much going on everywhere. You could miss the event by being there.

People won’t know where to look, and that will be a good thing. The chaos that previously made this Champions League seem vague will now vigorously serve it. There are also wider implications for football’s future, which makes this a potential watershed.