top of page
Search

Champions League: Groups, fixture dates and who are favourites?

Manchester City begin the defence of their Champions League title this week as the group stage gets under way.

Pep Guardiola's side are joined by Arsenal, Manchester United and Newcastle from the Premier League, with the latter making their return after a 20-year absence.

Scottish champions Celtic are playing in the group stage for the second successive season.

Here's all the key information about the 2023-24 Champions League.



Who has the toughest Champions League group?

Newcastle have been drawn in a tricky Group F alongside French champions Paris St-Germain, Italian giants AC Milan and former Champions League winners Borussia Dortmund.

City will fancy their chances of qualifying from Group G with little difficulty as they face RB Leipzig, Red Star Belgrade and Young Boys.

Celtic have what appears on paper to be a favourable group featuring Feyenoord, Atletico Madrid and Lazio.

The obvious concern for United are German giants Bayern Munich. But, with FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray also in Group A, United will feel they have enough to go through.



Who are the big names missing?

For years, the prospect of seeing Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi on European club football's greatest stage was a given, but neither will feature in this season's Champions League.

Ronaldo was one of the first big names to move to Saudi Arabia - he plays for Al Nassr - while Messi is in the United States with Inter Miami.

They are not the only two absentees, Brazil forward Neymar and France striker Karim Benzema having joined Ronaldo in the Saudi Pro League. They are with Al Hilal and Al-Ittihad respectively.

We will still get to see some of the biggest names of the present and future, with France striker Kylian Mbappe at PSG and City goal machine Erling Haaland looking to break more records.



Lamine Yamal is also causing plenty of excitement. The 16-year-old this year became Barcelona's youngest player of all time as well as the youngest debutant and scorer for Spain.

0 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page