The group stage of the UEFA Champions League will witness exciting confrontations, some of them retaliatory, as the draw that took place, Thursday, took place in the Turkish city of Istanbul, the French Paris Saint-Germain with Manchester City, the Spanish Barcelona with Bayern Munich, and Atletico Madrid, the league champion with Liverpool.
In the first group, Saint-Germain came with City in a replay of the semi-finals of last season, which was decided by the men of Spanish coach Pep Guardiola.
But this time, the Parisians will be armed with the new Argentine star Lionel Messi, who will meet his old coach, and he may face his traditional rival, Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, if he signed for “Citizens” in the coming days, according to press reports.
And he completed the contract of the first group of German Leipzig, who previously reached the semi-finals of the 2019-2020 edition, and Club Brugge of Belgium.
It will not be an easy task for Barcelona, ​​who was “orphaned” by the departure of Messi, as the draw placed him in the fifth group with Bayern, the 2020 champion, which brings back the Catalans with bad memories of the humiliating historical loss against the Bavarian battalion 8-2.
In the same group, Benfica of Portugal, and Dynamo Kyiv of Ukraine.
For defending champion Chelsea, its toughest opponent will be Juventus in Group H.
With or without Ronaldo, the old lady’s team remains a difficult number and a strong candidate that German Thomas Tuchel must deal with, despite the logic of easy qualification for the two teams with the presence of Zenit St Petersburg of Russia and Malmo of Sweden.
The second group will also witness a fiery meeting between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid after the victory of “Colchoneros” in the round of 16 of the 2019-20 season. Porto and AC Milan will try to break the expectations and nominations in this difficult group.
The smell of revenge also smells of the sixth group, which is witnessing a repeat of the European League final (Europa League) between Manchester United and Villarreal of Spain, with the difficult Italian Atalanta Bergamo in the group, along with the Swiss Young Boys.
As for Real Madrid , it inherited the Italian champion Inter again, along with Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk and Moldavian Sheriff Tiraspol in Group D.
As for the French champion Lille, he survived relatively with Seville, Austria, Salzburg, and Wolfsburg of Germany.
In Group C, Sporting of Portugal, Borussia Dortmund of Germany, Ajax Amsterdam of the Netherlands, and Besiktas of Turkey.
