The die has been cast. And this is what it looks like in the group stage: Premier League champions, Leicester City, and first time entrants into Europe’s top competition can breathe easier in Group G having drawn Porto, Club Brugge, and Kobenhaven. And the London clubs also escape with relatively easy draws as Arsenal in Group A face PSG, Basel, and Ludogorets and Spurs in Group E battle CSKA Moscow, Monaco, and Bayer Leverkusen.
Arsenal face Basel, a well established bogey side dumping Man Utd out unceremoniously five years ago in the group stage and then making Chelsea sweat two years later in Jose Mourinho’s return before the Blues advanced. With the Swiss side making things interesting, the Gunners are still favoured to take the second spot behind PSG minus its talisman, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, now at Man Utd. Spurs have a more open ended group with all its sides equally capable of taking top honours. Spurs face Monaco who as every Arsenal fan will remember painfully as the side not named Barcelona or Bayern to clobber the Gunners hopes of progression into the quarterfinals two seasons ago.
No such pretensions exist for Pep Guardiola’s Man City. The new manager will lock horns in Group C with his former club, Barcelona who he led to two Champions League titles in one of the most anticipated returns in the group stage. Guardiola’s three tenure at Bayern weren’t quite so fruitful while Barcelona under present coach, Luis Enrique have already added another Champions League title beating Juventus in 2015. So there is plenty to prove. One can imagine the Camp Nou going electric seeing that familiar dapper figure emerge on the sidelines. So many great memories! City, however also face challenges in a much improved Moenchengladbach and Brendan Rodgers’s Celtic, who squeaked through their group qualifier beating Harpoel Beer- Sheva on aggregate. City, on the other hand absolutely crushed Shakhtar Donetsk with Sergio Aguero in killer mode.
Real Madrid, current champions face Borussia Dortmund, who cut the Merengues down to size in the 2013 semi-finals; in what promises to be a tasty encounter in Group F while Bayern’s high flying attack will have to figure a way of unlocking Atletico Madrid’s steel trap defence and Antoine Griezmann in a Group D showdown. In Group H, Serie champs Juventus boosted by the transfer of the league’s top scorer, Gonzalo Higuain face Sevilla, the Europa Cup winners the last three seasons and in Group B, runners up Napoli without Higuain face Benfica.