Aston Villa have inflicted an unwanted record on RB Leipzig courtesy of their 3-2 win away in Eastern Germany in the Champions League tonight.
Unai Emery's men were pegged back twice by Marco Rose's side, but ultimately came away with all three points thanks to Ross Barkley's late deflected strike in the final five minutes.
Being seeded in pot four for the league phase draw, Villa have made a mockery of that placement, lying in third ahead of the second set of matchday six fixtures on Wednesday, sitting behind only Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen
For the German side though, the result has seen them join an unwanted club, while also going down as the first team to suffer a certain fate in the Champions League.
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Leipzig set league phase first in Villa defeat
With the Champions League undergoing a huge overhaul for this season, with the group stage being replaced by a league phase, Leipzig have become the first club to lose their first six games in the new format.
It is also the worst losing streak in the Champions League by a German club for 21 years, when Bayer Leverkusen lost seven in a row in 2003
As a whole, since the introduction of the group stage, Leipzig have become the 24th team to take zero points after six games at this stage.
Slovan Bratislava and Young Boys could join Leipzig in suffering the same unwanted fate when they play on Wednesday night, and both face tricky away games at Atletico Madrid and Stuttgart, respectively.
Fortunately for Leipzig, they still have two more chances to right that wrong, and not finish the campaign on nul points, when they face Sporting Lisbon and Sturm Graz later in January, with the league phase seeing an expansion from six games to eight.
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Leipzig one of many underachievers in the league phase
With a new format, it was unclear what to expect from it before matchday one, but some of Europe's biggest clubs have realised that progression is not as straightforward as it used to be.
Manchester City and Real Madrid instantly come to mind as the main underachievers so far, considering they were two previous winners, languishing towards the lower end of the top 24, but it is Paris Saint-Germain who have spent the vast majority of the league phase outside of the knockout places.
Among the teams still in the elimination zone though, the only club that looks out of place is Leipzig, considering they were semi-finalists in 2020, and have often reached the knockouts in recent years.
Manager Rose is already under increasing pressure, and this result will not do those fears any good, despite two wins in their last two prior to tonight.
Some chastening defeats earlier in the campaign mean their race is run in the Champions League for this season, as progression to the knockouts is now impossible.
In particular, losing at home to 10-man Juventus, away to Celtic, and to pot-four seeds Villa at the Red Bull Arena tonight have put pave to their chances, in what was a difficult draw for RB.
Andrew Delaney
