Real Madrid dropped by Mourinho's Benfica into Champions League playoffs round alongside PSG

Real Madrid was stunningly dumped into the knockout playoffs of the Champions League by its former coach José Mourinho — whose Benfica team advanced on a last-gasp goal by its goalkeeper — on Wednesday and will be joined there by title holder Paris Saint-Germain.

Madrid started play third in the 36-team standings and despite two goals by Kylian Mbappé lost 4-2 at Benfica and fell to ninth — one place below advancing direct to the round of 16.

Astonishingly, Benfica only advanced to the knockout phase in 24th place on goal difference because Ukrainian goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin scored in the eighth minute of stoppage time with a dramatic header when Madrid was down to nine players. Red cards were shown minutes earlier for Raul Asencio and Rodrygo.

“This victory is historic and important," Mourinho said, adding of his goalkeeper: "We knew that he could do it. You have to put the ball there, but it’s an amazing goal for the guy.”

Trubin said it was a “crazy moment. I’m not used to scoring. I’m 24 years old and it’s the first time.”

Madrid fell out of the top-eight places when Sporting Lisbon got a stoppage-time goal in a 3-2 win at Athletic Bilbao.

“They have outplayed us," Real Madrid coach Álvaro Arbeloa said of Benfica. "We’ve been far from the version we should be.”

Sporting surprisingly joined Liverpool — which beat Qarabag 6-0 and got a goal from Mohamed Salah — Tottenham, Barcelona, Chelsea and Manchester City in sealing top-eight finishes. Table-topping Arsenal, which completed a perfect eight-win program beating Kairat Almaty 3-2, and second-place Bayern Munich had already advanced to the round of 16 that starts in March.

PSG and Newcastle both started in the top eight but drew 1-1 in Paris which sent both falling in the standings to 11th and 12th. The game had an explosive start when Newcastle conceded a penalty for a handball in the first minute, and Ballon d'Or winner Ousmane Dembélé's spot-kick was saved by Nick Pope.

Madrid, PSG, Newcastle and last year’s beaten finalist Inter Milan all will be in the qualifying playoffs draw Friday for teams that placed ninth through 24th.

Still, PSG went through the playoffs round a year ago in taking the longest path possible with two extra games in February toward its first European title.

“We don’t have to think about it too much,” said Vitinha, who gave PSG an eighth-minute lead. “We had the same problem last year, and then out of nowhere things changed and the ball started to go in.”

There is a 50-50 chance it will be Mourinho's Benfica against Real Madrid and Mbappé two more times next month.

The bracket for the playoffs means the ninth-place team, Madrid, can be drawn only against the team that placed either 23rd or 24th. That is, respectively, Bodo/Glimt or Benfica.

If Benfica is not paired with Madrid, then it will be the 10th-place team, Inter Milan — whom Mourinho led to the 2010 Champions League title. It is a remarkable renaissance for Mourinho, who lost his job at Fenerbahce in August for losing in the Champions League qualifying playoffs. Against Benfica.

Norwegian debutant Bodo/Glimt will be a popular addition to the knockout phase, claiming 23rd place by winning 2-1 at Atletico Madrid. That showed how crucial it was to beat Man City last week inside its Arctic Circle home.

Benfica’s late drama eliminated Marseille, which lost 3-0 at Club Brugge and dropped below the cutoff into 25th place with nine points.

Also in the playoffs are Qarabag, Brugge, Galatasaray and Olympiakos, plus Juventus and Atalanta from Italy.

Italian champion Napoli was ousted in 30th place after losing 3-2 at home to Chelsea.

At halftime Wednesday, the in-play standings showed Chelsea in 12th and Barcelona 13th, both heading for the playoffs.

Barcelona was trailing at home to lowly Copenhagen, whose goal was scored by 17-year-old Icelandic striker Viktor Dadason, who scored three times in his debut Champions League season.

Barcelona flipped the game in the second half of a 4-1 win with goals from a stellar forward line: Robert Lewandowski, Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and Marcus Rashford.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Sporting's Ivan Fresneda, front, celebrates after Alisson Santos scoring the third goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Athletic Bilbao and Sporting CP, in Bilbao, Spain, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Miguel Oses)

PSG's Goncalo Ramos, right, congratulates Newcastle's Yoane Wissa at the end of a Champions League opening phase soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle in Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Benfica's head coach Jose Mourinho celebrates at the end of a Champions League opening phase soccer match between Benfica and Real Madrid, in Lisbon, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

Benfica's head coach Jose Mourinho celebrates at the end of a Champions League opening phase soccer match between Benfica and Real Madrid, in Lisbon, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

Arsenal's Viktor Gyoekeres scores his side's opening goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Arsenal and Kairat Almaty in London, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)

Manchester City's Erling Haaland, left, scores the opening goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match Manchester City and Galatasaray in Manchester, England, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

PSG's Vitinha celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during a Champions League opening phase soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle in Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Copenhagen's Vicktor Dabason celebrates with Jordan Larsson the opening goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Barcelona and Copenhagen in Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Benfica's Tomas Araujo, center, goes for a header against Real Madrid's Dean Huijsen, left, during a Champions League opening phase soccer match between Benfica and Real Madrid, in Lisbon, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

Newcastle's Yoane Wissa, center, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the Champions League soccer match between Newcastle and Paris Saint-Germain in Newcastle, England, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

Manchester City's Erling Haaland, right, and Glimt's Jostein Gundersen battle for the ball during the Champions League soccer match between Bodo/Glimt and Manchester City in Bodo, Norway, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Fredrik Varfjell/NTB via AP)

Benfica's head coach Jose Mourinho gives instructions during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Juventus and SL Benfica in Turin, Italy, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski, right, celebrates with his teammate Marcus Rashford after scoring his side's fourth goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Slavia Prague and Barcelona in Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

PSG's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, right, celebrates after scoring his side's first goal with Vitinha during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Sporting CP and Paris Saint-Germain, in Lisbon, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session early Friday without a plan for new equipment to overhaul the state's voting system by a July deadline, plunging into doubt the future of elections in the political battleground.

The lawmakers' failure to offer a solution after months of debate raises uncertainty about how Georgians will vote in November and leaves confusion that could end in the courts or a special legislative session.

“They’ve abdicated their responsibility,” Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper said of inaction by Republicans who control the legislature.

Currently, voters make their choices on Dominion Voting machines, which then print ballots with a QR code that scanners read to tally votes. Those machines have been repeatedly targeted by President Donald Trump following his 2020 election loss, and Trump’s Georgia supporters responded by enacting a law in 2024 that bans using barcodes to count votes.

But state law still requires counties to use the machines. No money has been allocated to reprogram them, and lawmakers failed to agree on a replacement.

“We’ll have an unresolvable statutory conflict come July 1,” said House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Victor Anderson, a Cornelia Republican who backed a proposal to keep using the machines in 2026 that Senate Republicans declined to consider.

House Republicans and Democrats backed Anderson's plan, which would have required that Georgia choose a voting process that didn't use QR codes by 2028. Election officials preferred that solution.

“The Senate has shown that they’re not responsible actors,” Draper said. She added that Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Trump-endorsed Republican running for governor, seemed more interested in keeping Trump's backing than “doing right by Georgia voters.”

A spokesperson for Jones didn't immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday.

Joseph Kirk, Bartow County election supervisor and president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, said he’ll look to the secretary of state for guidance and assumes a judge will rule to instruct election officials how to proceed.

“This is uncharted territory,” he said.

Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is also running for governor, said officials are “ready to follow the law and follow the Constitution.”

Republican House Speaker Jon Burns told reporters that his chamber was seeking to minimize changes this year.

“You can’t change horses in the middle of the stream,” Burns said.

Burns said he would meet with Gov. Brian Kemp and “take his temperature" on the possibility of a special session. A spokesperson for Kemp didn't answer questions about what the outgoing Republican governor would do.

Anderson said without action, the state could be required to use hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots in November.

Election officials say switching to a new system within just a few months, as advocated by some Republicans, would be nearly impossible.

“They made no way for this to happen except putting a deadline on it," Cherokee County elections director Anne Dover said of the switch away from barcodes. Dover said one problem under some plans is that a very large number of ballots would have to be printed.

Lawmakers seemed more concerned about scoring political points than making practical plans, Paulding County Election Supervisor Deidre Holden said.

“If anyone is resilient and can get the job done, it’s all of us election officials, but the legislators need to work with us, and they need to understand what we do before they go making laws that are basically unachievable for us,” Holden said.

Supporters of hand-marked paper ballots say voters are more likely to trust in an accurate count if they can see what gets read by the scanner.

Right-wing election activists lobbied lawmakers for an immediate switch to hand-marked paper ballots, but the House turned away from a Senate proposal to do so.

Anderson said he wasn’t sure if a special session could escape those political crosswinds, but said Georgia lawmakers must fix the problem.

“This is a legislative problem,” Anderson said. “It’s a legislative solution that has to happen.”

FILE - Voting machines are seen at the Bartow County Election office, Jan. 25, 2024, in Cartersville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)