The 144 league phase fixtures of the Champions League have been unveiled, a dizzying odyssey across Europe that will only end in January, when 24 of the 36 teams advance further into the competition. Following the draw was a frequently dizzying experience, Kaka smashing the big button and a string of names being thrown up on the bottom left of the screen. Chelsea have got Benfica at home, eh? Is that good?
Struggling to keep up. No matter, we’re here to guide you while we wait for a full schedule to drop on Saturday. Which games are the ones you cannot afford to miss between September and January? Here’s our eight top picks:
1. Barcelona vs. Paris Saint-Germain: The Champions League final we all wanted (at least, everyone that was not an Inter fan) should still be a clash of the best two teams in Europe. They should make for a fascinating contrast, PSG’s ability to dominate possession set against a Barcelona side that will press them as aggressively as any elite opponent. Then there are the individual battles between opponents, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha against Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes in particular. This will surely be the game of the league phase … and may well be a prelude to the final.
2. Liverpool vs. Real Madrid: Welcome home Trent. Well, probably not. It is hard to imagine Trent Alexander-Arnold will get a warm reception on his swift return to Anfield, a match that will also give Xabi Alonso a sense of what the other option might have been if he had not stuck around at Bayer Leverkusen for another year. By the time this game comes around, will he have his Madrid side humming as a unit? If not, do they run the risk of being brushed aside as they were when these two met in last season’s league phase?
3. Napoli vs. Manchester City: Another for reunion fans as Kevin De Bruyne visits his former employers. This game would be spicy enough with just that, but any match pitting Antonio Conte against Pep Guardiola tends to be box office. It will also serve as a helpful indicator of just how competitive the Italian champions might be. Unsurprisingly, Napoli didn’t look anything like the team they were after Khvicha Kvaratskhelia left midseason, and a combination of however many minutes De Bruyne can offer plus Noa Lang probably doesn’t plug that gap.
4. Pafos vs. Bayern Munich: A proper Champions League game this, pitting one of European football’s biggest names against a team who no one had heard of 10 years ago. And rightly so, Pafos FC were only founded a decade ago following the merger of two local teams. They’ve got to the league phase the hard way, eliminating Maccabi Tel Aviv, Dynamo Kyiv and Crvena zvezda and employ a fair few familiar faces: David Luiz, Ken Sema, Mislav Orsic. They couldn’t, could they?
5. Kairat Almaty vs. Real Madrid: They couldn’t, could they? Kairat Almaty, the easternmost team to ever play in the Champions League, will be the midway point of Real Madrid’s 8,000-mile midweek odyssey and will be hoping to make the most of the four-hour time difference and the very different circumstances that the biggest club in the world will find themselves in. It seems impossible to imagine that Vinicius Junior, Thibaut Courtois and the like could be beaten by such a minnow, but we all remember what happened when they hosted Sheriff Tiraspol.
6. Arsenal vs. Olympiacos: Ok, so this one might not be quite as replete with superstars as Barcelona against PSG, but if there’s a European game that guarantees drama, it’s this one. Think David Ospina fumbling a corner into his own net, Olivier Giroud’s hat trick to secure qualification for the knockouts, the dramatic Europa League knockout that ended with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s bicycle kick flying wide, and what may have been the first incident of COVID-19 in English football. These games are wild more often than not.
7. Galatasaray vs. Atletico Madrid: If there is a team that quietly has some tricky games ahead of them, it is Atletico Madrid, who rarely made league phase football look easy under the old system or the new. Going to Rams Park should be an almighty test of their defense, particularly if Leroy Sane and Victor Osimhen have found some synchronicity in attack. Galatasaray have the look of dark horses for a deep run in this competition, beat Atleti and Europe may feel compelled to take them very seriously.
8. Borussia Dortmund vs. Juventus: We end with a proper European game, one that couldn’t be more 90s coded if you spotted it doing the Poznan at the Oasis reunion gigs, utterly entranced by yet more vapid rock. The teams of today are probably not fit to lace the boots of Lars Ricken and Alessandro Del Piero, but at least the presence of this game on the schedules will give you an excuse to wallow in nostalgia.
