HOLDERS REAL FACE ROMAN CHALLENGE AS INTER HANDED BRUTAL DRAW
▶ Ian Hawkey takes a look at the draw for the Uefa Champions League group stage that also sees Ronaldo return to Manchester and face his old Madrid manager Mourinho
GROUP A Atletico Madrid Spain Borussia Dortmund Germany Monaco France Brugge Belgium
The tenants of the Metropolitano stadium will wary of some of the visitors heading their way at the beginning of what will be a big year for that arena. Atletico’s new home hosts the Champions League final next June.
Atletico’s head coach Diego Simeone might not like to make this competition a special target, but in supporterst cannot help but do so. Atletico expects. They have, after all, reached the final twice in the last five years.
But this is a tough first set of hurdles, with Monaco, the semi-finalists of 2016-17, and a Borussia Dortmund who have strengthened in the summer , on the immediate agenda. That’s a pair of big nights for Thomas Lemar, who became Atletico’s most expensive acquisition when he joined from Monaco last month, and for Monaco’s Radamel Falcao, once an idol of Atletico fans. Atletico, Europa League champions in May, fell out at the first phase last season. So did Dortmund. And so did Monaco.
Prediction: A tight joust, with Atletico Madrid and Dortmund progressing.
GROUP B Barcelona Spain Tottenham Hotspur England PSV Eindhoven Netherlands Inter Milan Italy
Pity poor Inter Milan. It’s been seven years since they participated in the most prestigious of club competitions, which meant a rather abrupt fall given they were European champions as recently as 2010. Their reward is to end up in perhaps the most testing group of all the eight. The ‘B’ in this Group B stands for brutal.
Barcelona, champions in 2015, are impatient for a return to the final, and equipped for a strong run in Europe, and Inter, who fought out a tetchy semi-final with the Catalan club nine seasons ago, will dread the possibility of Barca’s Philippe Coutinho reminding them of the many gifts he has, gifts they once owned.
For Spurs, another significant test of their growing stature. Last season, they came through a tough group but were then undone by Juventus. Tottenham are the only Group B member who has never won the European Cup. Their task is to show they are on the way to becoming an established heavyweight in it.
Prediction: Barcelona and Tottenham to make the last 16.
GROUP C Paris Saint-Germain France Napoli Italy Liverpool England
Red Star Belgrade Serbia
Not much need for introductions among the men in charge of the three frontrunners in Group C. Three-time Champions League-winning head coach Carlo Ancelotti, newly installed at Napoli, goes back to a previous place of employment. This time it’s Paris, where he oversaw domestic success with Paris Saint-Germain as they were turning rich and ambitious. They are still both of those things and now under the guidance of Thomas Tuchel, who not so long ago succeeded Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund.
Tuchel versus Klopp is a contest to relish, as are a Napoli who have it in them to dazzle. The quality of the football in this group should be high, and the reappearance of Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League group phase after a very long absence is intriguing.
The Serbian club might yet steal a point or two from the French, Italian or English aristocrats.
Prediction: Liverpool and PSG to pip Napoli for the top two spots.
GROUP D Lokomotiv Moscow Russia Porto Portugal Schalke Germany Galatasaray Turkey
In many respects, this looks the mildest of all the groups, although what it might lack in kudos it makes up for in kilometres, all the way from Oporto on the Atlantic to the capital of Russia, via the Ruhr, and the Bosphorus.
Lokomotiv share a responsibility to carry through on the hints of a renaissance in Russia football that the national team took all the way to a penalty shootout in a World Cup quarter-final last month. They have a chance, with good home form, of squeezing through.
It’s an opportunity, too, for two promising young coaches, Porto’s Sergio Conceicao, and Schalke’s Domenico Tedesco, up against a pair of veterans, Galatasaray’s Fatih Terim and Lokomotiv’s Yuri Semin. And another year for Porto goalkeeper Iker Casillas to celebrate his longevity. It is twenty two seasons since he was first called up, as a schoolboy, to join Real Madrid on a Champions League trip.
Prediction: Porto and Schalke to go through to knockout stage
GROUP E Bayern Munich Germany Benfica Portugal Ajax Netherlands AEK Athens Greece
There are 11 past European Cups spread across the trophy rooms of Group E, although the key factor in them is the timelines.
In the early to mid 1970s, Ajax and Bayern between them monopolised the European Cup. But it is a generation now since the most decorated of Dutch clubs grasped it last, and in Amsterdam, where experienced players such as Daley Blind and Dusan Tadic have been recruited, there is recognition that purely young talent brings fewer guarantees in elite club competitions than perhaps it once did.
It looks a gentle initiation for new Bayern head coach Niko Kovac. Ajax, and AEK, will for their part hope for a stumble from Benfica, who may be perennials in the Champions League and proud of their European Cup successes in the 1960s but who suffered a humiliating bruise to their pride a season ago. They lost all six of their group phase matches and will be determined to improve.
Prediction: Bayern top, with Benfica following them into the next phase.
GROUP F Manchester City England Shakhtar Donetsk Ukraine Lyon France Hoffenheim Germany
Manchester City, the English Premier League record-breakers, will be reminded over and over in the next two and half weeks that it is high time they broke their glass ceiling in Europe.
One semi-final in seven years and counting is a poor return for a club with City’s resources and particularly for a team with their current swagger. Last season, City found Shakhtar Donetsk challenging opposition in the group phase and will expect to do so again.
At the same time, they will expect Hoffenheim, the newcomers to this stage, will be motivated and well-drilled under their unusually youthful head coach Julian Nagelsmann. He is still only 31 but much admired, not least by City’s coach Pep Guardiola.
The scuffle for second place in the group, which City have the nous to take control of early, looks open, with a Lyon who reached the semifinal of the Europa League in 2016-17, the likeliest to seize it.
Prediction: Last 16 spots for City, with Lyon on their coat-tails.
GROUP G Real Madrid Spain
Roma Italy
CSKA Moscow Russia Viktoria Plzen Czech Republic
Can Real Madrid really win a fourth Champions League title on the trot? The apparently seismic changes at the club in the three months since they beat Liverpool in Kiev to make it three in a row suggest not.
The coach of that triple, Zinedine Zidane, has left, and so has his most reliable matchwinner, the Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who has left for a new Italian job with Juventus.
The new man in charge, the former Spain manager Julen Lopetegui, has a good early test of how the likes of Gareth Bale, Marco Asensio and Karim Benzema can step up with a pair of meetings with Roma, semi-finalists last season.
As for the long trip to CSKA Moscow, that has the potential to trip up the Spanish or Italian team, but the shape of the group has a lopsided look overall, with the clubs from the east likely to be contesting third place.
Prediction: Real and Roma to take their place in the knockouts.
GROUP H Juventus Italy Manchester United England Valencia Spain
Young Boys Switzerland
No match in which Cristiano Ronaldo takes part is low-key these days and that is just how Juventus, who have made the biggest investment in their history by signing the Ballon D’Or holder, like it.
Ronaldo is in Turin to bring his European expertise to a club that feels just a little short of Champions League-winning knowhow. As part of the great Ronaldo premiere, he now gets a reunion with the club where he won the first of his five European Cups a decade ago, Manchester United.
Ronaldo back in Manchester; Ronaldo versus his compatriot and former coach at Real Madrid, Jose Mourinho. There’s plenty more backstory in the United-Juventus matches, too. But the group may have another protagonist. Valencia are glad to be back in a competition they have twice reached the final of this century, and Ronaldo and Mourinho both know theirs is a tough city to visit and triumph in.
Prediction: Juventus and Manchester United to go on – but with a scare along the way.