All against Madrid
Post image
The Haliç Congress Center, on the banks of the Bosphorus, in a cloudy Istanbul, hosts a Champions League draw for the second consecutive year (6:00 p.m., Movistar Champions League) that once again has Real Madrid as a great attraction. The conquest of the Fourteenth just a few months ago in Paris once again places the Whites as the great ruler of Europe, the rival to beat. The Champions League that starts is, again, an all against him. His crown is the most precious asset.  The draw for the group stage defines a panorama that is becoming more and more complicated. Last year Barcelona could not get past the league; in this, other big clubs in Europe will surely see their entry into the competition choked. This edition has the nuance that the first six days will be played in a compressed way from September 6 and 7 to November 1 and 2. There will only be one week without Champions in between, that of the national team break. The Qatar World Cup is to blame for this ‘express’ group stage that the Champions League will experience. As in the last editions, pot 1, the seeded one, will have the national and European champions. Madrid is the only Spaniard among those present thanks to its status as winner of the League and the Champions League. Next to him will be Eintracht (for their Europa League title), Manchester City, Bayern, Milan, PSG, Porto and Ajax.

Bass drum 2 very hard

The other three Spaniards (Barça, Atlético and Sevilla) will wait in pot 2 to come out as well as possible from the crossover against the top seeds. There is a very big difference between taking on Bayern, PSG or City and taking on the others. Madrid will not be able to play against the teams in the League, so it is certain that a rival will come out of the other five in the pot: Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham, Juventus and RB Leipzig. Needless to say, a pairing with the reds would be spectacular in the repeat, just a few months later, of the final in Paris. Dangers. As always, the real difficulty of the groups will be marked by the pairings against the teams from pots 3 and 4. In the first there are important dangers in the Italian teams (Inter and Napoli) and Dortmud, mainly. They are accompanied in the hype by Salzburg, Shakhtar, Benfica, Sporting de Portugal and Leverkusen. None of them can be classified as simple.

Watch out for Marseille

Regarding the four, the great threat lies in Marseille, second in the French league and European champion in its day, which can definitively entangle a group in case the combination of the previous pots is bad. The others are weaker, a priori, although they hide the discomfort of having to make long and unappetizing trips such as to Israel with the Maccabi or the Czech Republic with the Viktoria Plzen. After the group stage, the round of 16 draw will take place on 7 November in Nyon. The Spanish teams want to be fully in it, although to do so they must first solve a league of just two months that today begins its path. The goal is located in the grand final on June 10 at the Ataturk Stadium in the Turkish capital. The die is cast. That of the champion, Madrid, and especially that of the rest, who see how the king of the competition lengthens his tyranny over and over again.