Presented with pomp intended to herald a new era in European club football, the Champions League draw provided the expected mix of the increased number of big matches and lesser ones that the new format brings about. There is no longer a group stage, but a league of 36 teams in which each team faces eight others, four games at home and four away. The eight highest-scoring clubs advance directly to the last 16, and ninth to 24th will play a round of 32 tie. The bottom 12 teams in this first phase will have their European participation sealed because they are no longer relegated to the Europa League.
The new competition model was attracting a lot of attention from club representatives regarding away games. The computer, activated by Cristiano Ronaldo and Buffon, provided complex away games: Real Madrid will visit Anfield, Barcelona Dortmund and Atlético and Girona will travel to Paris to face PSG. The new system also allows teams from the same country to share rivals. Barca and Madrid, for example, will face Dortmund, Atalanta and Brest. “The first objective of this new format is that Real Madrid does not win,” joked Buffon. More poisonous and political was UEFA’s announcement of this new Champions League, with Buffon himself, Ibrahimovic and Alexander Ceferin in the cast of actors. The head of European football said “that will never happen” when the Swedish striker was about to say that the new format is a Super League.
Like any novelty, the new Champions League creates uncertainty for predictions or for knowing whether or not it will attract fans. The greater number of matches between the big teams plays in its favour, as does the same curiosity as the domestic leagues in watching the standings. The development of this first phase remains to be seen, because one of the doubts admitted by members of the UEFA Executive Committee is what will happen if in the last few days there are too many inconsequential matches or one of the two teams has nothing to play for. Off the top of my head and by name, it can be said that Girona was the least favoured by the draw. Arsenal, Liverpool, PSG and Milan await Míchel’s team.
real Madrid
Madrid are starting to look for their 16th European Cup, where they finished 15th. The first opponent in the draw, although perhaps not the first they will play against, was Borussia Dortmund, the finalist they beat on June 1 at Wembley. The path of the most recent champions is a return to their last finals. In addition to hosting Dortmund at the Bernabéu, they will visit Liverpool at Anfield, against whom they lifted their two previous Champions Leagues, the 2022 one in Paris and the 2018 one in kyiv.
Ancelotti will no longer face Jürgen Klopp, who was particularly tormented by Madrid, who he never beat and against whom he missed out on two Champions League trophies. His place has been taken by the Dutchman Arne Slot, who has maintained the attacking momentum and the squad, to which he has just added the Italian Chiesa.
Dortmund’s bench will also be changed. Terzic resigned after the Wembley final and his place has been taken by Nuri Sahin, a former Real Madrid player. The team has also lost several key players, such as Füllkrug, who has moved to West Ham; Hummels, who is without a team; and Sancho and Matsen, whose loans have expired. To cover these absences, they signed two forwards (Beier and Guirassy), the centre-back Anton, and obtained the loan of Yan Couto from City, who shone at Girona. As well as against their rivals from the last three Champions League finals, Madrid will once again play against the team that won their last title, Atalanta, against whom they beat the European Super Cup on 14 August. When Ancelotti arrives in Bergamo, Gasperini will still be there, determined to rebuild the only team capable of beating Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen last season. The veteran coach is still digesting the departure to Juventus of the man he considered his most important player, Koopmeiners, whom he left out of the Super Cup squad when he found out he was leaving.
The draw, which also brought him together with Salzburg, brought him more juicy reunions. Like with Milan, the second team with the most European Cups (7), where Morata, a Real Madrid youth player, arrived this summer. Madrid is the team against which he has scored the most goals, six, according to Opta.
Like the Mbappé brothers, when Kylian signed for Real Madrid, 17-year-old Ethan also left PSG for Lille, where they will face each other. It will not be the only trip to France for Madrid, who will play against the surprising Brest, third last year in Ligue 1. The match will have to be played just over 100 kilometres away, in Guingamp, a town of 6,000 inhabitants.
Barcelona
Barcelona’s challenge in the Champions League group stage is via Germany: Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. Atalanta, Young Boys, Brest, Benfica, Red Star and Monaco complete the duels for Hansi Flick’s team in the first phase of the Champions League.
The Catalans have no tougher rival than the German giants: Bayern Munich. However, Barça’s history does not inspire them. They have faced Bayern on 15 occasions and have only managed two victories, both times with Leo Messi in the squad, in 2009 (4-0, with two goals from the Argentine) and in 2015 (3-0, also with another double from the number 10). The rest of the clashes, two draws and 11 victories for the Germans, none as painful for the Barcelona fans as the 2-8 in Lisbon in the Champions League during the pandemic. On that occasion, Hansi Flick was in the Bayern dugout, today the leader of the Barcelona dressing room. This season marks the debut of Vicent Kompany as coach of a Bayern, which is renewing itself – it signed Olise, Palhinha and Ito – but which never loses its competitive level, always tough in Europe, now in search of recovering the Bundesliga crown. At least there is good news for Barcelona, as the game against Bayern will be played at Montjuïc.
Against Dortmund, Barcelona will travel to Germany. There are few stadiums in Europe that are hotter than Signal Iduna Park, which can hold more than 80,000 spectators. In any case, the trips to Lisbon (Benfica), Belgrade (Cruz Crvena Zvezda) and Monaco will not be easy either. “As a club we always aim for the maximum, for the top, because we are a very good team, growing,” said Bojan Krkic, a member of the Barcelona football council, who was the club’s spokesman for the Champions League draw on Thursday.
In Montjuïc, while waiting for Barcelona to return to the Camp Nou at the beginning of next year, the Blaugranas will host, in addition to Bayern, Atalanta, Young Boys and Brest. In principle, it is not a difficult first phase for Hansi Flick’s Barcelona, leader of the League after closing the first three games with victories. It happens, however, that Barça has not lifted the European Cup since 2015 and in 2021 and 2022 was relegated to the Europa League. Also without success. “The team and the technical staff have started the season at a high level,” continued Bojan. And he finished: “We want to restore the enthusiasm of the fans and show that Barcelona is an opponent with which the teams that face us will not be happy.” Barça, first, will have to overcome the tough German teams.
Atletico Madrid
“It is a requirement, a necessity and a commitment to be among the top eight,” warned Enrique Cerezo, president of Atlético de Madrid. The bar has been set high for Diego Pablo Simeone, who will have to face high-level tactical battles against Xabi Alonso and Luis Enrique. The latter will have to visit him in Paris to face PSG post-Mbappé, with the morbidity that the Asturian coach had even committed to Atlético before the arrival of the Argentine coach. Luis Enrique’s name has also been heard strongly when, in times of acute crisis in the offices of the Metropolitano, they looked for a replacement for Simeone. Xabi Alonso and his impressive Bayer Leverkusen, current champion of the Bundesliga and the German Cup, will be welcomed by Atlético at the Metropolitano. The German team, with its successful Spanish general manager Fernando Carro at the helm, has kept the champion team and has reinforced itself with Aleix García and a French combo, the winger Terrier and the centre-back Belocian, for whom it has paid 35 million euros to Stade de Reims.
There is a general trend among Atlético’s rivals. In addition to Luis Enrique and Xabi Alonso, Benfica’s coaches, Roger Schmidt, who will visit him in Lisbon, and Leipzig’s Marco Rose, are also followers of the new football paradigm that has been imposed. The same can be said of Pepijn Lijnders (Salzburg) who was Jürgen Klopp’s assistant coach and has opted for Vermeeren, who was ruled out by Simeone. The match will be in the Austrian Alpine town. Even Lille’s coach, Bruno Genesio, also has an offensive approach, with pressure and quick transitions. Atlético will host the French team and Slovan Bratislava, while they will travel to Prague to face the always tough Sparta.
Girona
Girona coach Míchel likes challenges. He showed this in the run-up to the Champions League draw, on the eve of the Girona-Osasuna clash at Montilivi. “I already said it before, the dream of playing in the Champions League is incredible. I would love to go to Anfield. And I would also like to welcome a historic team like Bayern or Juve to Montilivi… They are rivals that our fans would love to welcome,” said the Madrid coach. Girona will not travel to Anfield, but they will welcome the legendary English team, currently in the process of reinvention, to Montilivi. In addition, as if Liverpool were not glamorous enough, Arsenal, Feyenoord and Slovan Bratislava will come to Girona.
The North London team is returning to the Champions League after seven seasons. Led by the Spaniard Mikel Arteta, Arsenal fought last year’s Premier League with Manchester City, champions of the last four English leagues. This summer, Arsenal reinforced itself with defender Calafiori and Spanish midfielder, winner of Euro 2024, Mikel Merino.
Girona will travel to Paris to face the powerful PSG, Barcelona’s executioner and semi-finalist in the last edition of the tournament. They will also have to travel to visit Milan, PSV and Sturm Graz. “Obviously, a priori, we are very inferior to our rivals,” began Pere Guardiola, president and shareholder of the Girona club. “But,” he added, “we will have to see. As the coach said, we are going for it.” It will be Girona’s first participation in the Champions League after only four seasons in the First Division. A dream debut, yes; but also complicated for the Catalan team. “The only thing I ask of the players is to be competitive because our objective is the League. For this club to continue making steps forward we have to continue in the First Division,” resolved a cautious Míchel. “We have had to put ourselves together to try to have a competitive team. We have a lot of faith in Míchel. We have to be humble, take it step by step and try to do it with desire and impetus,” he concluded. Girona is making its debut with teams with pedigree in the Champions League, but with its sights set on the League.
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