Ian Hawkey provides his in-depth look at the Uefa Champions League groups A-D.
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GROUP A
There’s a tall, domineering distraction in Group A, though chances are it will cease to be so once matchday one is over. Malmo, the Swedish club who count among their honours an appearance in a final of a European Cup, back in 1980, will come to the latest home of the player who has given their club and perhaps even their city, its biggest claim to fame since the turn of the millennium. Malmo away at the PSG of Malmo’s most celebrated son, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, on matchday one will be all about Zlatan.
Malmo hosting PSG in November will be a special homecoming, too. The Swedish club will being doing well if they are entertaining thoughts of qualifying for the next phase by then. They are the minnows of a group which includes two genuine heavyweights, the Parisians and Real Madrid, and a cruiserweight in Shakhtar Donetsk, whose Champions League record is strong enough that they should begrudge their luck, having to tackle the champions of France and the European Cup’s most decorated club in the first phase.
Real Madrid
The form guide speaks for itself. You have to go back a while to find the most recent time Madrid did not reach the last four, at least, of the competition they have stamped their identity on more than any other. There is transition at Madrid, with a new head coach, Rafa Benitez, but he hardly comes as an ingénue into European knockouts, where his record is top-class.
PSG
How much will PSG’s Angel di Maria, for one, be looking forward to taking on the Real Madrid who he did so much to inspire to victory in the 2014 Champions League final? Di Maria may just become the player who helps elevate PSG beyond the glass ceiling of the last eight of the competition, makes them less Zlatan-centred.
Shakhtar
Shakhtar’s homelessness looks like a long-term condition, with the conflict in Ukraine ongoing and the country’s most successful club, in European terms, of the last decade now obliged to play their home matches in the Champions League in Lviv, a long way from Donetsk. They have lost key stars, like Douglas Costa and Luiz Adriano, and may suffer for that.
Malmo
There will be nostalgia, and not just for the reunion with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, when he represents PSG against the club of his youth. The Swedish club will enjoy being among the elite of Europe, as they did last year, and there has been a high turnover of players in and out during the transfer window. Some may make their names, but the fixtures are daunting.
GROUP B
A soft landing, by the look of it, for a Manchester United who were last season absent from the Champions League’s top 32 for the first and only time this century. There’s only one long trip for them, the away game at CSKA Moscow, and although there will be a motivation for the Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven to put one over their compatriot Louis Van Gaal, the United manager, on matchday one, PSV can only envy their opponents the resources they have devoted to re-establishing themselves as one of the continent’s heavyweights.
United took away last season’s PSV star, Memphis Depay, in the summer, for a start. Wolfsburg, who look strong enough to gain one of the top two spots, also lost their leading light from 2014-15, Kevin de Bruyne — to Manchester City — while CSKA, with Seydou Doumbia back from Roma, will aspire to go better than last season, where they troubled the likes of Manchester City but failed to reach the last 16.
Manchester United
The club, three times European champions, believe they belong in this company, and given the aura and the millions they have spent on recruitment in the last year and a half, they are justified in that. They have honoured a great competition, too, in the past, and done so with flair and pizzazz. They are expected to bring that again to the party.
PSV Eindhoven
PSV won the Dutch title at a canter last season, a feather in the cap of coach Phillip Cocu, who confronts one of his mentors, Louis Van Gaal, when Group B kicks off with PSV at home to Manchester United. But Dutch clubs generally have come to struggle to break through the first phase and a young PSV squad may find it tough.
Wolfsburg
The Bundesliga runners-up of 2014-15 are not habituées of the Champions League, but would be disappointed to be playing Europa League football, or missing out on Europe altogether, in February. They have experience dotted around the squad, an exciting addition in Julian Draxler, and a sense that they should become regulars in continent’s top 32.
CSKA Moscow
The Russians took four points off Manchester City last season, lost narrowly at home to Bayern Munich and though they suffered a thumping against Roma, they will look at this year’s group and deem it more negotiable than the pool they landed in last year. In Moscow, they tend to be hard to beat.
GROUP C
Has the Champions League ever had such a rank outsider as Astana? Measure how far they are outside the mainstream of elite European football, and then the answer must be ‘No’. The Kazakhstan club must take on an east-to-west journey of over 7,000 kilometres for their first ever group-stage fixture, at Benfica, on Tuesday. Have they experience for this level of competition? Hardly. The club only came into existence six years ago.
Variety is to be welcomed, and on a cast list which has no Milan, no Inter, and no Scottish representation, the presence of a young club backed by public Kazakh money, self-conscious they are on this stage to be ambassadors for an ambitious nation seeking higher global profile, may be a sign of the times. They could have had a tougher group in terms of their opponents, although finishing above Atletico Madrid and Benfica looks a tall order. Galatasaray also have a far stronger tradition of reaching the knockouts.
Atletico Madrid
The 2014 finalists and Spanish champions from 18 months ago look to have added some significant firepower to their ranks, notably in the shape of Colombia striker Jackson Martinez, and they have the methods to go far: a resolute defence, effectiveness on the counter-attack and tactical savvy.
Benfica
A group phase starting without the maned, sometimes manic Jorge Jesus patrolling his technical area, seems like a Champions League missing something. But Benfica watched, alarmed, as long-term boss Jesus crossed town to Sporting in June and a new coach, Rui Vitoria, took over. He hopes Benfica can grow from serially distinguished Europa Leaguers into something better.
Galatasaray
The Istanbul club will want to shake off an indifferent start to their defence of the Turkish league title, and hope that new signing Lukas Podolski can bring some of his abundant international experience to bear on the European campaign. Where there’s Wesley Sneijder, there’s always hope of unlocking tricky matches.
Astana
The Kazakhstan club might have predicted that reaching the Champions League would not automatically rebrand a nation derided by the 2006 movie, Borat. Sure enough, Galatasaray’s Lukas Podolski tweeted an image of the film’s goofy protagonist on hearing his club would be playing Astana. He later said sorry, and may learn to be if he sees the Kazakhs can play a bit.
GROUP D
The group with the right letter, or so those clubs who have landed in it with argue: D stands for Death, Group of Death. Look only at the pedigree of its constituent leagues. A Spanish club, an English club, an Italian and a German. That’s the domestic competitions ranked first, second, third and fourth in the Uefa coefficient that evaluates the strongest leagues. Pity Monchengladbach. Like Malmo they have a distant history of going the full way, to a final, in the European Cup, way back in 1977. They will be pessimistic this new adventure can last beyond December.
City will be jittery, too. They are up against two clubs who reached European finals only last May. Sevilla won theirs, the Europa League they had also won in 2014; and Juventus fought hard to finish a fairly close second in the 2015 Champions League final. That’s the sort of momentum, and mastery that Manchester City, pacesetters in the Premier League, can only look at with envy.
Juventus
A problematic start to their Serie A season needs to be put behind them urgently. There are no straightforward fixtures in this group, and their first, hosting Manchester City, is taxing. Paul Pogba needs to assume the considerable responsibilities his ownership of the Juve number 10 shirt bestows, and show he can master a midfield that now lacks the stalwarts Andrea Pirlo and Arturo Vidal.
Manchester City
City have two Premier League titles since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bought the club but have continually underperformed in the competition, the Champions League, which best projects a club’s brand and status. There has been progress over the last year in City’s capacity to be as good as the sum of their lavish parts when they leave England, but probably need to reach a semi-final at least to match the ambitions of their board, fans and players.
Sevilla
The fifth members of an impressive Spanish armada in the competition, few would begrudge Sevilla their right to be the first beneficiaries of the fresh Uefa ruling that gives the Europa League holders automatic access to the Champions League. They finished 2014-15 fifth in La Liga, which is good as finishing to-four in almost any other league.
Borussia Monchengladbach
There are better ways to prepare for a long-waited return to the best club competition in football than a 3-0 him defeat by Hamburg, which Monchengladbach suffered on the Bundesliga fixture immediately before their opening Champions League game against Sevilla. There are, it seems, many lightweight symptoms about Borussia that the rest of Group D can prey on.
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