The Champions League is about to start in a little bit more than a week. The groups are already determined, and we will make a quick run through all of them, in order for you to easily reach some information. Once you read this, check out BetXChange’s odds offer for the elite European competition.
Group A
Here we have two heavyweights of football now, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain. They are absolute favorites for the top two places as Club Brugge and the Turkish champions Galatasaray, can’t compete with the aforementioned sides. At this point, we would give a slight edge to PSG for taking the first place, due to Real’s slow start, but that could change along the way. As for the third spot, Brugge and Galata will have a very intense battle.
Group B
Tottenham and Bayern Munich stand above the Red Star and Olympiacos. The current UCL finalist is in better shape than Bayern who still looks for proper chemistry on the court under Niko Kovac, which forces us to back up the Spurs in the race for the first place. Red Star made one hell of a surprise last season by beating Liverpool in Belgrade, and all those teams will have trouble on the road in Serbia. Still, we believe that Olympiacos has better players and will reach that third spot and Europa League ticket.
Group C
The first place in this assembly is reserved for Manchester City, whose quality is far far higher than the rivals’. Other three teams are Shakhtar, Atalanta and Dinamo Zagreb, who is a massive underdog in this group. Atalanta has a solid team, who plays together for quite some time, and it seems that they might be better than the Ukrainian club.
Group D
Two big rivals who played in the quarterfinals of the previous edition are in this group, Atletico Madrid and Juventus. Besides the two are also Bayer Leverkusen and Lokomotiv Moscow. The Old Lady is one of the biggest favorites to win the title, and the same applies to Atletico despite selling Antoine Griezmann. They’ve landed young wunderkind Joao Felix, and are determined to reach the UCL trophy. Bayer should be third, while Lokomotiv is according to almost all the experts the weakest side in this group.
Group E
Two acquaintances from the last year’s group stage Liverpool and Napoli are meeting once again. Apart from the reigning European champions and the Italian powerhouse, we have the Belgian and the Austrian champions Genk and Red Bull Salzburg here. RB and Napoli met in the Europa League, and the Italians eliminated the Bulls, and that pretty much tells us that the chances for them to reach that second spot in this group are small. Liverpool is the strongest team, then comes the Napoli and RB behind them. Genk doesn’t have what it takes to compete with all of them.
Group F
The group of death as the fans called it. Really, when you see Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, and Inter Milan at one place, what can you think other than that. We all know who is the favorite for the first place, but what will be more interesting is the fight for the second. At this point, we believe that Dortmund has more quality than the Italians. Meanwhile, the fourth team in the assembly Slavia Praha, with all due respect, can’t make any troubles to its rivals.
Group G
Very exciting battles are expecting us in this group, as all four teams have a similar quality, and each one can advance to the next phase. Benfica, Lyon, Red Bull Leipzig, and Zenit are the clubs with slight differences between them, and we truly expect to see an incredibly interesting competition here. From our point of view, all the matches are going to be efficient, but we can’t tell who is going to end up in which place.
Group H
Ajax, Chelsea, Lille, and Valencia. Now, this would be fun. This group is comparable to the previous, except for Lille, whose experience in the Champions League is pretty small. However, we do expect them to be tough at home and to snap some points. Valencia has almost the same team from the last year, while both Ajax and Chelsea suffered major changes in their roster. Because of that, we believe that one of them will stay outside the top two places.
