And that's a wrap: UEFA Youth League, Matchday 6

And that’s a wrap. The teams that can potentially win the UEFA Youth League have been whittled down to 24.

We have eight teams already confirmed through to the Round of 16, after topping their Champions League path groups. They are: Milan, Copenhagen, Feyenoord, Lens, Manchester City, Porto, Real Madrid, and Salzburg.

Tomorrow, we will find out the matchups between the Domestic Champions path winners and the group runners-up. The Domestic Champions path winners are:

AZ Alkmaar, last season’s champions, FC Basel, FC Midtylland, 1. FSV Mainz 05, Nantes, Olympiacos, FK Partizan and Žilina

These teams will all host a runner-up from the Champions path. Those teams are:

Atlético Madrid, FC Barcelona, Bayern München, Borussia Dortmund, Braga, Internazionale, RB Leipzig and Sevilla

José Mourinho wouldn’t have described this group stage as ‘football heritage’: perhaps more than ever before in this competition we had teams constantly changing line-ups and often not fielding full strength XIs for various reasons.

Good Heavens: UEFA Youth League, Matchday 5

We’re getting to the business stage of the UEFA Youth League now, so let’s step aside from the FIFA Under-17 World Cup and adjust our focus for MD5 (although with a bit of a shorter write-up than usual given all the goings-on). With one match left, we’ve got plenty of teams already assured of a place in the next phase, whether that be in top spot, and the direct path to the Round of 16, or a second place progression to a knockout game against one of the Domestic Champions Path clubs.

SCOUTED NotebookLlew Davies

But we still got to see a great selection of the absolute cream of the crop from Europe’s best academies.

Porto, Barça, City, Salzburg, Real Madrid and Lens all impressed, while the likes of Feyenoord’s Leo Sauer and Antoni Milambo, Real Madrid’s Nico Paz, Crvena zvezda’s Jovan Mijatović and Manchester United’s Kobbie Mainoo have all played UEFA Youth League minutes this season before stepping up into the Champions League proper.

The pipelines get ever stronger at these clubs, and the players continue to be streamlined into senior football earlier than ever before.

But that brings us to MD6. There were not too many games of consequence left, but we’ve got another rundown for you on some new players we’ve not touched on yet in this group stage. Scroll on for standout talents…