With the draws for the UEFA Champions League (UCL) group stage which held late last Thursday in Monaco, the coast is clear for the real battle to begin next month. The searchlight is now on defending champion, Real Madrid Club de Futbol of Spain.
Will The Whites retain the title or is another champion going to emerge at the end of hostilities?
Real Madrid claimed a 10th European title in Lisbon in May and added the UEFA Super Cup earlier this month. It faces a reunion with Liverpool FC.
Its bid to become the first team to retain the UCL begins in Group B, where FC Basel 1893, PFC Ludogorets Razgrad and Liverpool.
The Reds beat The Merengues in the 1981 European Cup final in Paris, but bowed to FC Basel in the 2002/03 competition.
Liverpool and Basel are expected to be hard nuts to crack for Real Madrid C.F.
While Real Madrid, with star player Cristiano Ronaldo tops the UEFA rankings for 2014/15 table with 143,571, Liverpool was nowhere in the top 10 teams on the rankings, a pointer that The Merengues has an edge over its opponent, even with the arrival of Mario Balotelli from AC Milan.
Basel beat Ludogorets – one of two group stage debutants along with Swedish champions, Malmo– 6-2 on aggregate in the 2013/14 play-offs, but stands no chance.
Going by mathematics, both Real Madrid and Liverpool are expected to qualify from Group B, with little or no opposition from Basel and PFC Ludogorets Razgrad.
In Group A, which is the only section to include four domestic champions where the likes of La Liga champions, Club Atletico de Madrid, with Serie A title winners, Juventus, face champions of Greece, Olympiacos FC, and Malmo FF, the battle will be rife, with all the teams trying to outwit one another.
And judging from current forms, Malmo, which seems to be the underdog, will be no match to the trio. The real battle for qualification will be between Atletico Madrid and Juventus.
While Atletico Madrid is seventh on the current UEFA 2014/15 rankings with 99,571 points, none of the other teams in the group are ranked in the top 10.
SL Benfica, FC Zenit, Bayer 04 Leverkusen and AS Monaco FC would do battle in Group C with pointer on SL Benfica (fifth on the UEFA ranking with 112.976 points).
They are expected to qualify for the knockout stage with AS Monaco, though not ranked among the top 10 teams, but stand a good chance above their other opponents.
Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal FC, along with Borussia Dortmund, Galatasaray AS and RSC Anderlecht would do battle in Group D.
While Galatasaray beat Arsenal on penalties in the 2000 UEFA Cup final in Copenhagen, becoming the first Turkish team to win a European competition, both Arsenal and Dortmund are in the same group for the third time in four seasons.
The group might look dicey, but if tradition is anything to go by, Arsenal will scale through to the knockout stage, with either Borussia Dortmund or Galatasaray joining the English Premiership side.
Group E has last year’s runner-up, Bayern Munchen, as well as Manchester City FC, PFC CSKA Moskva and AS Roma in the same circle.
Bayern Munchen is third on the UEFA ranking with 128.283 points while Manchester City FC is sixth with 100.935 points.
Though, AS Roma swapped home wins with Bayern in the 2010/11 group stage, the Italian side’s most recent UEFA Champions League appearance, no threat is expected.
With only Bayern and Manchester City on the rankings, they are highly favoured over the other two teams to qualify from the group.
Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), Ajax and Cyprus side, Apoel, would be doing battle in Group F, meaning a reunion with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Frank de Boer.
PSG striker, Ibrahimovic, has played for Barcelona (2009/10) and Ajax (2001 to 2004) and is in a better position to know the teams better.
Barcelona also overcame PSG on away goals in the 2012/13 quarter-finals.
In group G, former champions, Chelsea FC, along with FC Schalke 04, Sporting Clube de Portugal and NK Maribor would be campaigning for honours.
Chelsea defeated Schalke 3-0 home and away, while Ajax went down 0-4 in Barcelona, but edged the Catalan club 2-1 in Amsterdam.
Then and now, there has been a lot of changes in the four teams in the group, with Chelsea seemingly having upper hand following the signings of some of the good legs in the game such as Da Costa and a boost from returnee, Dider Drogba.
Athletic Club, in the group stage for the first time in 16 years, plays Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk and Bate Borisov in Group H, after beating Napoli in last Wednesday’s play-off.
