The contenders
Real Madrid
Where better to start than with the reigning champions? Real Madrid went through last season’s UEFA Champions League conquering teams in dramatic fashion on their way to their 14th European title. Los Blancos are littered with star quality, and having recently acquired Antonio Rudiger and Aurelien Tchouameni, the team has injected the right amount of youthfulness and experience in what was already a well-rounded squad. No team has been able to retain their UCL crown other than Real – they won the title three times between 2016 and 2018 – so if any side has the wherewithal to win the European Cup a second consecutive time, it is the club led by the competition’s most successful manager Carlo Ancelotti, who’s won it four times.
Manchester City
For all the success Manchester City have enjoyed in the past decade, the trophy with the big ears has eluded their clutches, and every year the pressure to win it intensifies. Pep Guardiola has been in the club’s hotseat for six years now, but has reached only one final, the 1-0 defeat
to Chelsea in the 2020/21 campaign, with the team. Many attribute that loss not only to the fact that Guardiola refused to play a true holding midfielder that night, but also because they did not have an out-andout striker. The English champions have remedied that by bringing in one of the best forwards in the world, Erling Haaland. For the past three years, the Citizens have been playing with a false nine, and have been relatively dominant, but the addition of a forward who has 99 goals in 126 league matches will go a long way in aiding their push to hold the UCL trophy aloft. In an interesting sub-plot, Haaland will also meet previous club Borussia Dortmund in the second gameweek, with City drawing them in Group G.
Bayern Munich
Perennial UCL contenders Bayern Munich had an historic start to the Bundesliga campaign, accruing nine points and scoring 15 goals – conceding just once – in their first three games, and with Sadio Mane in their ranks, they will be out to capture their seventh European Cup. For as much as goalscoring is one of the Senegalese’s strong points, the 30-year-old is also adept at involving others in attacks, and when you have weapons such as Kingsley Coman, Serge Gnabry, Leroy Sane and Thomas Muller to call upon, opposition teams will struggle to prioritize who to pick up in dangerous areas. The Germans are going to need as much firepower as they can possibly get too, given they have been drawn in arguably the toughest group. The Bavarians will play Inter Milan, Viktoria Plzen and Barcelona as they look to exorcise the demons of their shock defeat to Villarreal in the quarter-finals last season.