The Champions League is almost upon us again.
After Paris Saint-Germain’s remarkable victory over Inter in May’s final, the tournament’s 71st edition begins in earnest next month with the fixtures for the league phase confirmed at the draw in Nyon.
Our experts break down what they are looking forward to seeing, who could flourish and fail and make their top-eight predictions.
Which league phase game caught your eye in the draw?
Oli Kay: Newcastle v Barcelona. I was working in a pub in my home town when they played each other in 1997 and Faustino Asprilla scored a hat-trick in a remarkable Newcastle win. St James’ Park is amazing on nights like that, and Eddie Howe will have his team fired up. A big test for Lamine Yamal and his mates.
James Horncastle: Kairat captain Alyaksandr Martynovich said it would be a dream to play Real Madrid after the Kazakhs, third in their domestic league, knocked out Celtic in the play-offs. His dream came true. Kevin De Bruyne is also going straight back to Manchester City too… with Napoli.
Seb Stafford-Bloor: Liverpool vs Real Madrid at Anfield. Sorry, let me indulge the cliche: that will be a really interesting test of this new Liverpool side, but also a — air quotes — fabulous night under the lights.
Real Madrid are returning to Anfield (Jan Kruger/Getty Images for Qatar Airways)
Caoimhe O’Neill: The return of Trent Alexander-Arnold to Anfield is some storyline. But Bayern Munich away at Pafos is dreamy and so is seeing Real Madrid having to travel to Kairat Almaty.
Mark Carey: Barcelona vs PSG. Just think of the quality that will be on show: Yamal, Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski, Pedri et al. against Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue, Vitinha and friends. Come on, that is exciting.
Which big team is most at risk of not qualifying for the last 16?
Kay: It’s a tough draw for Chelsea who, as well as going away to Bayern Munich, will face Barcelona, Napoli, Benfica, Atalanta and Ajax. I expect them to get through but it won’t be easy. PSG have arguably the toughest draw of all the big teams, but they have the quality to deal with that.
Horncastle: Very early to say, as we have a play-off round and a January transfer window to come. Atalanta are a small club that have played like a big club for almost a decade. Big test for Ivan Juric.
O’Neill: I’m sure champions of the world Chelsea will be absolutely fine but after a quick scan through they do have one of the more tasty looking draws.
Carey: It is so difficult to predict how this year will pan out, but Chelsea have a tricky set of fixtures to navigate upon their return to the Champions League. It will be a good barometer of just how far they have come under Enzo Maresca.
Which less well-known team could be a dark horse?
Kay: Not a dark horse in the sense of making the last 16, because the odds are hugely against them, but I would like to think Bodo/Glimt could pull off one or two surprise results.
Horncastle: Galatasaray are the dark horse that throws their jockey, runs through a fence and leaves the race. They’ve signed Victor Osimhen on a permanent and picked up Leroy Sane on a free. Fun. As for a proper dark horse, maybe the competition’s greater resemblance to a league will help Antonio Conte at Napoli.
Sane is an exciting addition for Galatasaray this season (Ahmad Mora/Getty Images)
Stafford-Bloor: Eintracht Frankfurt’s front four are not to be taken lightly. It’s been reformatted over the summer, with Hugo Ekitike leaving for Liverpool, but Jonny Burkardt has arrived from Mainz, Ritsu Doan has joined from Freiburg, and their combination with Jean-Matteo Bahoya and Can Uzun has looked full of speed, understanding and technical quality. Defensive limitations may limit their progress, but they could bloody a nose or two.
O’Neill: Kairat of Kazakhstan, purely based on location. Jet lag could come in handy for Kairat, whose ground is closer to China than it is to neighbouring Russia. To give you an idea of how far away it is: if you were driving the 4,000-plus miles from London, it would take you 76 hours. It’s a long journey home if you win and even longer if you lose. Just ask Celtic.
Carey: They are not less well-known per se — in fact, they are previous European Cup winners — but Marseille have not reached the knockout stage of the Champions League since the 2011-12 season. With Roberto De Zerbi at the wheel, I’m intrigued to see how they fare in this format.
Give us the name of one unsung talent who will emerge as a star?
Kay: I had heard a lot of good things about Christos Tzolis, the Greek winger at Club Brugge and, sure enough, he excelled as they ran riot against Rangers in the play-off round. For any Norwich fans reading: yes, that’s the same Christos Tzolis who came and went from Carrow Road a few years ago and barely made a ripple.
Horncastle: He’s 30. He’s Slovakian. He’s the least talked-about key player at Napoli. But there are few No 6s in Europe who know how to play fast and slow like the nimble Stanislav Lobotka.
Stafford-Bloor: Raul Florucz, from Union Saint-Gilloise. The 24-year-old Austrian is a new signing from Slovenia’s Olimpija, but he is averaging a goal every 111 minutes in the Pro League and looks right at home at a club with a deserved reputation for unearthing prolific forwards.
Raul Florucz could be a star of the tournament (Tom Goyvaerts/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images)
O’Neill: Rio Ngumoha was only 10 when Liverpool won the Champions League for a sixth time in June 2019. He was born in August 2008, three months after his former club Chelsea lost to Manchester United in the Moscow final. But the year is 2025, and Rio is ready. He scored on his Anfield debut in pre-season, he scored on his Premier League debut and I wouldn’t put it past him to score on his Champions League debut either.
Carey: Are we talking about Monaco’s Maghnes Akliouche enough? The 23-year-old is fleet-footed, direct and incredibly graceful on the ball — often dropping a shoulder and cutting inside onto his stronger left foot before driving towards goal. He got 10 league assists last season, too.
Who will be the competition’s top scorer?
Kay: Boring answer: Erling Haaland, as long as Manchester City stay in the competition long enough, which doesn’t seem like the certainty it was in the recent past.
Horncastle: Raphinha was top scorer last season and I’m tempted to go for him again. But Hugo Ekitike has scored in every game he has played for Liverpool so far.
Stafford-Bloor: Harry Kane looks fitter than he has in a few years and will lead a Bayern attack that, even without the injured Jamal Musiala, looks really, really dangerous.
O’Neill: Joao Pedro has had a vibrant start to life at Chelsea. He could easily rack up a lot of goals in the eight group stage games. Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo also loves a cup competition and, at 26, is now one of Liverpool’s elder statesmen.
Joao Pedro should thrive this season (Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)
Carey: If they go as far as they did last season, you would do well to look beyond Paris Saint-Germain’s Ousmane Dembele. The French international will be keen to ensure last season’s otherworldly attacking numbers were not an anomaly.
How would you tweak the league phase format to make it better?
Kay: I would revert to the group stage system. The problem was never with the format, but the enormous gap in wealth between the biggest, richest clubs and everyone else. But it’s going to take a lot more than a tweak to address that. That would require a time machine.
Horncastle: Perceived jeopardy was illusory last season. Maybe UEFA should handicap teams based on revenue, benchmarked against the Deloitte Money League. If you come up against a fellow member of the elite, nothing changes. However, if you play a team in the second or third wealth tier, you can only score from outside the opposition penalty area or pass with back heels. Make suggestions in the comments.
Stafford-Bloor: I really liked the group stages. Not necessarily because of the jeopardy, because that was on the wane, but having home and away games allowed friction to develop between clubs and prevented the meandering feel it has acquired under this new format. Eight games — with that play-off safety net — also makes it far too easy to qualify without playing particularly well.
O’Neill: Give the winning team a trophy. I know the real prize is the European Cup and qualifying for the knockouts, but throw a silly-yet-serious League Phase Super Shield into the mix and see if it adds a little more spice. “Champions League League Phase champions, you’ll never sing that.”
Carey: Why don’t we just double down and have the whole competition as one big league? Every team plays each other once, and whoever comes out on top gets to lift the trophy. Yes, it is unrealistic and, yes, it would mean an even more swollen schedule — but that has not stopped football before.
Which team do you wish was in the competition but missed out?
Kay: Celtic’s and Rangers’ play-off defeats by Kairat and Club Brugge, respectively, were humiliating, in different ways, but both clubs brought so much to European competition last season.
Are the interests of European football best served by a system that forces the champions of Scotland (and Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Ukraine etc) to go through qualifying rounds while England and Spain respectively have six and five teams straight through to the group stage? I would say not.
Celtic fans will be missed from the tournament (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
Horncastle: Life is cruel. So cruel that a former Galatasaray player stopped Fenerbahce from reaching the league phase. Kerem Akturkoglu’s goal for Benfica last night denied us eight games of Jose Mourinho in the Champions League. That’s eight pre-match press conferences, eight post-match press conferences. Reunions. High jinx. Memes. Well done, Kerem. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
O’Neill: If we have Pafos FC, how can we be sad? There are football fans who will get to travel to Cyprus to watch their team play in the Champions League this autumn. Imagine in November when the temperature in Cyprus is an average of 23˚C (73˚F). Where else would you rather be?
Carey: Manchester Uni… just kidding. Of the Italian sides, I would have liked to see Bologna have another go after last season’s entry for the first time in 60 years. Bologna were in fourth spot as late as Gameweek 33 in Serie A ahead of Juventus, but slipped down to ninth by the end of the season after a winless run in their final five games.
Rank your top eight in finishing order
Kay: Barcelona, PSG, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester City.
Horncastle: Barcelona, PSG, Liverpool, Inter, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Napoli, Chelsea.
Stafford-Bloor: PSG, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Tottenham.
O’Neill: PSG, Barcelona, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Inter.
Carey: Barcelona, PSG, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Manchester City.
(Top photo: Valentin Flauraud/AFP via Getty Images)