10 to answer
Nick Bidwell poses ten questions that need answering in this season’s Champions League campaign
1. Can Ligue 1 keep up the pace?
With Paris Saint-Germain finishing runners-up to Bayern Munich and Lyon confounding all expectations to reach the semi-finals, 2019-20 was a rare season of glory for French sides in the Champions League. The pressure is now on the Ligue 1 brethren not to slip back into their old semi-detached ways.
Given their financial muscle, and the depth of stellar talent in the French capital in the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, Mauro Icardi, Angel Di Maria, Marco Verratti and Marquinhos, PSG are sure to be contenders again. But what of the other Gallic participants?
Marseille, winners of this competition in its inaugural season as the “Champions League” in 1992-93 and runners-up in Ligue 1 last term, are not in the best of shape. They are in debt to the tune of €90 million; a large number of their fans are openly hostile to club movers and shakers (American owner Frank McCourt and president Jacques-Henri Eyraud), and the off-season has been a period of wall-to-wall instability – the sacking of director of sport Andoni Zubizarreta; head coach Andre Villas-Boas close to quitting in protest before being talked round; daily rumours of a possible takeover, the list of would-be buyers including a Saudi prince, a former French boxer and a Tunisian businessman.
Looking to reduce their balance sheet arrears by two-thirds, Marseille have resigned themselves to offloading one or two of their best players. Thankfully their number one creator Dimitri Payet will not be heading for the door, having extended his contract – albeit with a 50 per cent pay cut – while they have signed some top young talents in Pape Gueye and Leonardo Balerdi.
The contrast with Rennes is significant, and not just in terms of European experience. The Champions League first-timers are much more buoyant going into the new season, with bright young coach Julian Stephan assembling a formidable unit. They reached the Europa League round of 16 in 2018-19, beat PSG in the French Cup final a few weeks later and achieved their best-ever Ligue 1 finish last term (third). They are a team who fights until the death, too – last season they picked up no fewer than 11 points from goals scored in the 89th minute and beyond.
The pressure is now on the Ligue 1 brethren not to slip back into their old ways
2. Can former star players fit as head coaches?
In appointing Andrea Pirlo and Ronald Koeman to run their respective first teams, Barcelona and Juventus basically are playing the populist card, banking on the return of iconic playing figures to spark similar amounts of success in the technical area.
There’s a great deal of precedent and logic to the idea. Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane both managed to create golden dynasties on their old Barcelona and Real Madrid stomping grounds. Neither Pirlo nor Koeman will have to waste time finding their bearings and know exactly what the culture and the expectations are. Nor are the pair likely to have any problems in the dressing room; players tend to have instant respect for high achievers. Supporters invariably embrace such appointments, excited by the reappearance of much-loved idols.
There are snags however. Pirlo, for example, has never coached at any level, only granted his UEFA pro licence earlier this summer. Once a thoroughbred deep-lying playmaker, he repeatedly showcased the finest of tactical brains. So wouldn’t he have been better served with a coaching apprenticeship somewhere less taxing? Learning on the job – and even more so in a high-profile post – comes with clear risks.
Ronald Koeman will always be a Nou Camp VIP for his bullet free-kick against Sampdoria in Barca’s first-ever European Cup victory at Wembley in 1992. But that will not make his new role any easier. Barcelona are in a mess from top to bottom and while Koeman has done an excellent job of late with the Netherlands national team, he has had his sub-par moments in club management, particularly at Benfica, Valencia and
Everton. He is not the Messiah.
It may well be the case that that Koeman turns out to merely be a seat-warmer. Presidential elections are scheduled for next March and most of the candidates are promising to give the head coaching reins to legendary Camp Nou midfielder and skipper Xavi, who currently is working in Qatar. That leaves Koeman with very little time to clear out the dead wood and recalibrate.
3. Will Istanbul Basaksehir make the weight?
The Basaksehir outfit, recently crowned Turkish champions for the first time in their history, will be keen to mark their inaugural Champions League campaign with a scalp or two. Wishful thinking perhaps? The slow pace of the Super Lig is not the best of training grounds, so they can be vulnerable to teams who play with physicality and high tempo.
4. Who will the neutrals pull for?
Atalanta would be a good choice. The Bergamo club have much to commend them: they play high-quality attacking football thanks to the tactical wiles of coach Gian Piero Gasperini, whose fluid 3-5-2 system is a work of art. Located in a city terribly affected by COVID-19, they need all the backing they can get.
5. Where will the goals flow the most?
Prepare yourselves for a Dortmund firework display. Apart from Liverpool, there is no better team in Europe at exploding forward from deep positions. So many attacking weapons, with new Brazilian signing Reinier joining Jadon Sancho, Thorgan Hazard, Julian Brandt, plus the biggest gun of all in prolific striker Erling Haaland.
Guardiola and Zidane both managed to create golden dynasties on their old Barca and Real stomping grounds
6. How will Ronald Koeman pull Barcelona out of the mire?
A good start would be to switch from the Catalan side’s usual 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1. This tweak would allow Koeman to use Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong in his favourite role as one of two pivots in front of the backline. De Jong is at his best picking the ball up from the centre-backs and advancing with it.
7. Any chance of an Eastern uprising?
Back in the mists of time, it was no rare occurrence for an Eastern European team to make a splash in the continent’s most prestigious competition. CSKA Sofia (1982) and Dynamo Kiev (1999) were worthy semi-finalists, while Steaua Bucharest (1986) and Red Star Belgrade (1991) even had the temerity to win the crown outright.
Now, it’s an entirely different ball game. Outfits from England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France call the shots.
One only has to look at the poor showing of the Eastern contingent in recent times. In each of the past four seasons, only one team (Shakhtar in 2017-18) has made it through to the knockout stage and results in the group phase last term were especially unedifying, with the likes of Shakhtar, Dinamo Zagreb, Lokomotiv Moscow, Zenit, Red Star Belgrade and Slavia Prague recording just six victories between them.
Which of the Eastern sides are the most likely to still be standing next spring? Shakhtar, seem the best equipped, blessed with a swathe of top-class Brazilians and led by a very smart tactician and team-builder in the Portuguese Luis Castro. The Miners might have shown their limitations when thumped 5-0 by Internazionale in a Europa League semi-final in August, but generally have a good track record of springing surprises. Last season, they were good enough to hold Manchester City 1-1 at the Etihad Stadium and pulled off a great 2-1 win at eventual quarter-finalists Atalanta.
Russian champions Zenit may have a number of trump cards to play too. They have the cutting edge infrastructure, the financial backing of the Gazprom energy giants and a squad that is qualitatively and quantitatively fit for purpose. Coach Sergei Semak, once a stylish Russian international midfielder, deserves much praise, not only for assembling a well-balanced, tactically-aware line-up, but also for rooting out the dressing room cliques which regularly undermined the cause.
Semak’s latest experiment involves deploying nominal Brazilian winger Malcom as a ‘nine-and-a-half’ behind twin-strikers Artem Dzyuba and Sardar Azmoun.
8. Can Benzema stay as sharp?
There’s absolutely no reason to believe that Real Madrid’s French frontman will lose his taste for Champions League end-product. His record is extraordinary: 65 goals in total for Lyon and Real in the competition and at least four strikes in every one of his last ten Champions League campaigns.
9. Will Ajax repeat their heroics of 2018-19?
Probably not. Many of that platinum generation (Matthijs de Ligt, Frenkie de Jong, Hakim Ziyech) have left for pastures new. While they do have an exciting new crop of youngsters in midfielder Ryan Gravenberch, forward Mohammed Kudus and new Brazilian frontrunner Antony, they are not sufficiently ripe to take Europe by storm.
10. Italy’s next top coach?
Despite a marked shortage of squad options, Lazio’s Simone Inzaghi managed to wring every last drop of value from the players at his disposal in 2019-20. His side was always meticulously organised and his matchday strategies more often than not worked a treat. Few teams in Europe are better than Lazio at setting up for shots on goal.