Champions League Guardiola heading back to Barcelona
City to play manager’s old club as well as Celtic Draw offers Leicester hope of topping group
Pep Guardiola enjoyed himself the last time Manchester City played Barcelona – as a spectator, the then Bayern Munich coach was seen laughing uncontrollably as Lionel Messi ‘nutmegged’ James Milner in the last-16 tie in 2015 – but there will have been a wince at the looming prospect of another return to the Nou Camp.
Guardiola’s City were paired with Barcelona – along with Borussia Mönchengladbach and Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic – in one of the more intriguing and eye-catching groups as the Champions League draw was made in Monaco.
For Leicester City, in their first involvement in the competition, there was an attractive and manageable draw. They are to face Porto, Club Brugge and Copenhagen. It is far from inconceivable that Leicester will win Group G, and their supporters will be pleased at the away trips they can plan at such attractive destinations.
Arsenal, in Group A, were drawn with seeded Paris St-Germain – the French club have strong links with Arsène Wenger and have, in the past, courted him as their manager – along with Basel and a first-ever trip to Bulgaria, albeit involving a 2,600-mile round trip, where they will face Ludogorets. They should go through, although the fear, again, will be finishing runners-up.
For Tottenham Hotspur, who will play their home matches at Wembley Stadium as White Hart Lane is slowly rebuilt, a return to the Champions League for the first time since 2010-2011, when they reached the last eight, delivered them a group they will be confident of negotiating. As third seeds, they could have fared a lot worse than the Russian champions CSKA Moscow, although that is never the easiest of trips, Bayer Leverkusen and Monaco, although drawing the French club, who reached the group stages through the play-offs, out of pot four did deliver a sting in the tail.
But it is Guardiola, City and Barcelona – and Celtic – which is the headline-grabber. Guardiola’s Bayern were beaten by a Messi-inspired Barcelona in the semi-finals in 2015 and the Spaniard, who won the European Cup as a player with Barca and twice as a coach, will know that intense focus will be on him again.
In his six campaigns as a manager, Guardiola has never failed to reach the semi-finals of Europe’s premier competition – the stage that City reached last season – and although he will be confident of progressing through this group, there may be the prospect of doing so as runners-up to the club who moulded everything he does. City will play Barca in the pivotal middle fixtures.
City will also face the intensity and emotion of having to overcome Celtic and, although Rodgers’s side are a pale shadow of the teams who have previously taken part in this competition – and famously beat Barcelona in a group match in Guardiola’s last season with the Catalan club in 2012 – it will be a raucous occasion in Glasgow.
It will also be an opportunity for Rodgers, the former Liverpool manager, whose side includes three former City players – Kolo Touré, Dedryck Boyata and Scott Sinclair – who will not be lacking in motivation. A fourth former City player is the on-loan Patrick Roberts, but he may not be allowed to play.
City faced Mönchengladbach and beat them home and away in their group last season.
For Leicester – seeded because they are Premier League champions – the reward was obvious, even if manager Claudio Ranieri again claimed they were “underdogs”.
He added: “For this reason, we must fight for everything. I want to see my players fight against the best in Europe. Every team in the competition will fight like champions. Last season was wonderful but I want more.”
Porto are seasoned Champions League campaigners but, having avoided the likes of Atlético Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, there is nothing for Leicester to fear beyond the nervousness of being new to the competition.