Kane Won the Ballon d'Or. Bayern Are 14th. Madrid Is a Trap Door.

On Monday night at the London Palladium, Harry Kane held the Ballon d'Or. First English winner since Michael Owen in 2001, 25 years on. Ahead of Kylian Mbappé, ahead of Lamine Yamal, on the back of a 73-goal season for club and country. Bayern's first winner in 45 years. On Tuesday, his team plays a game it cannot afford to lose — sitting 14th.

That is the honest shock of this Champions League table. Five clubs are perfect — Paris Saint-Germain, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Real Madrid and Real Betis — all on nine points. Stuttgart and Arsenal follow on seven, Barcelona hold the last direct place on six. Bayern and Atlético are not in that picture. The two clubs meeting at the Metropolitano on Tuesday are 14th and 16th — inside the knock-out play-off places — and running out of autumn to fix it.

Bayern's five points are stranger than the position. They are unbeaten, they opened by beating Bodø/Glimt 5–0, they have scored ten goals — and they have won once, following it with 2–2 draws against Viking and Arsenal. Atlético's route to four points has been messier. They drew 1–1 away to VfB Stuttgart. They beat Manchester United 2–1. And they lost 2–1 at Anfield. A point and two places separate them — the difference between a seeded play-off draw and an unseeded one.

It will not freeze, and that is the trap door. Only the top eight go straight to the round of 16; places nine to 24 go to a two-legged play-off; places 25 to 36 go home. The loser in Madrid stays on four or five points while winners around them move, and could wake up Wednesday in the elimination half of the table with four matchdays left. A draw does neither side much good. This is a league-phase game with a knockout game's nerves.

Bayern will play it without their head coach. Vincent Kompany collapsed at the training ground on Oct 23; the cause, established this week, was meningeal irritation — inflammation of the tissue around the brain. Discharged from hospital on Wednesday, he is recovering at home on rest and medication, under orders not even to be consulted about football while he recovers. Assistants Aaron Danks and René Marić are running the team, Danks in charge in Madrid, with no return expected before the break. Across the technical area, Diego Simeone is in his 15th year in the job.

So the night runs through Kane, because Bayern's season now does. The Ballon d'Or was last season's verdict; this season he has ten goals in twelve appearances in all competitions, four of them in three Champions League games — joint-top of the scoring charts. Rested in midweek, he returns in Madrid, where the head-to-head offers Bayern comfort: four wins to Atlético's two in this competition. Atlético, at home, have never cared much for the other side's comfort.

Elsewhere on Matchday 4: perfect Aston Villa go to Barcelona; Roma, 15th on four points, visit a Manchester United side 21st on three; the leaders, PSG, go to Villarreal. But the game the table is watching is in Madrid — the Ballon d'Or winner, two giants in the play-off places, one dugout empty, and a loser who falls toward the trap door.

Atlético Madrid vs Bayern Munich — Champions League league phase, Matchday 4. Tuesday Nov 3, 12:00 PM PT (20:00Z), Riyadh Air Metropolitano, Madrid.