After round one of the competition some interesting theories have been thrown up.
The Champions League is back and now all 32 sides have played their first match in the competition, what has been learned?
The Spanish giants mean business
Barcelona and Real Madrid were dumped out of the competition at the semi-finals stage last season, but both have spent big this summer to improve and both have new head coaches.
Whatever they did seems to have worked as potentially tricky ties agains Galatasaray and Ajax were overcome with gusto by La Liga duo.
On Tuesday night a hat-trick from Cristiano Ronaldo sunk a Gala side short of spirit 1-6, whilst Lionel Messi netted three for Barca in a 4-0 rout of the Dutch champions.
Experience isn’t everything
Two Premier League teams with two new managers (sort of) opened the tournament with home matches and fared very differently.
David Moyes was in charge for the first time at this level as Manchester United hosted Bayer Leverkusen, whereas two-time Champions League winner Jose Mourinho led Chelsea against FC Basel.
What happened didn’t follow the script as Mourinho’s Blues were beaten 1-2, whilst United ran out 4-2 winners in fine style.
Manchester City could make it out of the group stages for the first time
Admittedly the Citizens’ first tie was against arguably the weakest side in the competition in the shape of Viktoria Plzen, but a 0-3 away win first time out is nothing to be sniffed at.
New boss Manuel Pellegrini is an expert in this tournament having previously had success with Villarreal and Malaga and this could well be the year City get out of their group.
Bayern Munich remain the team to beat
After a 7-0 aggregate demolition of Barca in last year’s semi-finals, there was a definite sense that the power of football had shifted from Catalonia to Bavaria.
An already strong Bayern squad has been improved this summer with the arrival of Mario Goetze and Thiago Alcantara and a 3-0 win against CSKA Moscow on Tuesday was a strong victory.
Maybe, just maybe, it could be Arsenal’s year
The Gunners have now qualified for more successive Champions League tournaments that any other team bar Madrid and United, yet have failed to lift the title.
If Arsene Wenger were to break the north London club’s eight-year spell without a trophy with the biggest in Europe, the Frenchman would be forgiven for any faults that may have been perceived.
The last time the side came close was in 2006 when Barca beat them in the final, but a 1-2 win against Olympique Marseille on Wednesday is a good sign of possible things to come.
COMMENTS