Three-and-a-half months have passed since Kai Havertz scored the goal that lifted Chelsea above Manchester City and on the cusp of Champions League glory. Three-and-a-half months saw the continent’s elite spend money in the market to try and build teams that could compete again and win the prestigious prize. So, who will have the last laugh?Quest for glory begins: as many as three Champions League classics to kick start the new seasonIs this the year for Paris Saint-Germain?Everything the Saints have been doing in the past decade was done just so the club could be made into a continental force that would win the Champions League. The crazy money they splashed on Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani and a slurry of others was done with the “big-eared” trophy in mind. And the last transfer window was their strongest yet: Achraf Hakimi, Georginio Wijnaldum, Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma, and a guy called Lionel Messi all arrived to Parc des Princes to become the best team the world has ever had. To even have a chance of staking a claim for eternal glory – winning the UCL is essential. According to Mozzart Bet odds, they are the first favourites.Former Paris Saint-Germain star slams Sergio Ramos: “He is a bad idea for PSG”Speaking to the press, new PSG midfielder Gini Wijnaldum warned his teammates not to let the Champions League ambition to devour them. He certainly knows what it’s like to have an entire club clinging on a single trophy. He was one of the players who won Liverpool’s first title after a wait of almost three decades. He felt how desperate everyone at Anfield was to finally break the curse and win the title. Now he finds himself in a similar surrounding in Paris: Champions League glory is all everyone is talking about.”This reminds me of Liverpool’s situation with the Premier League. The club had never won the Championship since being called the Premier League and it was becoming an obsession. I have the impression that it is the same here. But we must not neglect the other competitions. Our squad doesn’t automatically guarantee that we will automatically win the Champions League. Even with all these great players, we will have to train and behave as a team. When you look at the past winners, it wasn’t always the team with the best individuals that won. You have to play as a team.”Have the Citizens got what it takes to rule Europe?The champions of England have a team of supreme quality and an able coach to lead them. But something always seems to be missing. In his five seasons in the sky blue dugout, Pep Guardiola has won three Premier League titles, but he was frustratingly short of European glory. The Citizens would love to rival their biggest rivals Manchester United, who’d won Europe’s big prize three times in their history. They say the first one is the hardest and Guardiola would definitely agree. He came closest last season, but then popped up the abovementioned Havertz to end City’s hopes.It was goals galore against Gladbach in our #UCL group stage opener! 🔥📆 #OnThisDay 2016🔷 #ManCity | https://t.co/axa0klD5re pic.twitter.com/8f49AhJY3S— Manchester City (@ManCity) September 14, 2021 This season they’ve added Britain’s most expensive player Jack Grealish. But for all his quality – and there is a lot of it – the experience of playing in European cups is not something the former Aston Villa captain brought with him when he arrived to Etihad Stadium. Not to mention that Guardiola lost his main goalscorer in Sergio Aguero, a man with 78 games and 41 goals in the Champions League to his name – and failed to replace him in the market. Harry Kane was a heavily linked target, but the England star remained at Tottenham.Bayern – The German meat-grinding machineSix-time winners Bayern raided their domestic rivals RB Leipzig for some of their best players. It’s a tested and tried recipe that made the Bavarians the most successful, but also the most hated club in Germany. Sometimes those two simply have to go hand in hand. Although they lost one of their best players David Alaba, the amount of talent in this team is breathtaking.Mara ya mwisho timu hizi mbili zilikutana Barcelona walipata taabu sana, walibebebeshwa gunia ya magoli 8. Leo hii Barcelona watakuwa wenyeji wa Bayern kwenye mchuano wa Klabu bingwa Uropa, Bayern hawajapoteza kwenye mechi 18 ya klabu bingwa wamecheza ugenini hivi karibuni. pic.twitter.com/TzxWE2UKvu— Mozzart Bet Kenya (@mozzartbetkenya) September 14, 2021 Manager Julian Nagelsmann, captain Marcel Sabitzer and top defender Dayot Upamecano all arrived from Leipzig to improve the German champions, having helped the Red Bulls to the last 16 and semi-finals of the Champions League in recent seasons. The relentless goalscorer Robert Lewandowski, speed demon Alphonso Davies, veteran genius Thomas Muller and the others will feel that they’ve got all the tools to crash the Champions League party and steal the trophy under the noses of more glamourous teams.Liverpool need Salah, Mane and Firmino back to their bestThe Reds swept away the competition and won the competition in 2019 when they beat Tottenham in an all-English final. The following season they finally won the Premier League and ended the long drought. But then, after winning the two most valuable titles in two successive seasons, Jurgen Klopp and this team had to endure a choppy campaign last term. Injuries, inconsistent form, contract stalemate with Wijnaldum and a general bad vibe got to the team and pretty much made them an unknown.A return to @ChampionsLeague action is next on our agenda 🤩🏆 pic.twitter.com/cozPUQvVZQ— Liverpool FC (@LFC) September 13, 2021 Liverpool continue to rely on the core of players that led them to glory in 2019 and face arguably the toughest group of all the English sides, being drawn against Spanish champions Atletico Madrid, Portuguese Primeira Liga runners-up Porto and Italy’s seven-time European champions AC Milan. They could be excellent and they could also dish out another disappointment. Which Liverpool will we get this year?Real Madrid – the Champions League old guardAs ‘new money’ clubs like Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City try to enforce a new world order in football, there are those who want to keep the old values – mostly because they ARE the old values. Real Madrid are still the biggest club in the world – and they’ve got the obligation to always go for the title in every tournament they enter. Whether they have got what it takes on the pitch is another matter, but this could prove a transitional year at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.’If a president who has won 13 Champions Leagues is incompetent, what are the others like?’The club also has financial worries, but they have not been as costly to them as their El Clasico rivals Barcelona, although losing their defensive pairing of Sergio Ramos and Raphael Varane is a big loss. They have recruited well in two-time Champions League winner David Alaba from Bayern and highly-rated France midfielder Eduardo Camavinga from Rennes and will hope to wring every last drop out of Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and maybe even Gareth Bale. Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti has already won this competition and will offer plenty of experience to his mixed and matched side.Tuchel making Chelsea addicted to winningThe Blues appear even stronger going into this year’s tournament, having recruited striker Romelu Lukaku, a scorer of 13 goals in 27 Champions League matches and more than 300 in his club career, and midfielder Saul Niguez, a runner-up in Europe’s premier club competition with Atletico Madrid in 2016.The Blues’s tactician Thomas Tuchel insists that his team make winning the Champions League ‘an addiction’. The only way to progress in modern football is never to be happy with what you’ve already won but to aim to win whichever competition comes next.”The most important thing is not to look back but to keep the hunger because that feeling creates a hunger for more and more. It’s addictive. This game is about winning because winning changes your feeling, it changes your work atmosphere in the building and gives you natural confidence.”Cristiano Ronaldo FCOK, the club is not called Cristiano Ronaldo FC, but you could be fooled into thinking so in recent weeks. The return of their Portuguese superstar has lifted the Red Devils just in time for their Champions League comeback. Last season they finished only third in their group which saw them relegated to Europa League, the competition they eventually ended by losing the final against Villareal. Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer scored for United in their legendary 1999 final win over Bayern and his job will be to add a bit of magic to a team that’s looking a lot stronger than last season.Young Boys watawakaribisha Manchester United kwenye kinyanganyiro cha klabu bingwa Uropa usiku wa leo, ni mchuano ambao wengi wanasema utakuwa rahisi kwa United ila Young Boys wamejipanga pia. Ushindi ni baada ya dakika tisini nani atatesa? #UEFAChampionsLeague pic.twitter.com/e7qEmCw97H— Mozzart Bet Kenya (@mozzartbetkenya) September 14, 2021 Atletico Madrid, the red and white armyDiego Simeone has got that iron grip on his players, one that makes them go into every game as if they are going to a battle. That’s how they win matches and that’s how they won the La Liga title last season. They managed to re-sign Simeone’s favourite Antoine Griezmann after a miserable two-year stint at Barca. Although the deal to bring the Frenchman back to Madrid is only a loan deal, you feel as if the forward has never even left Atleti. He’s one of them – and he wants to prove himself again. Many red and white fans have never forgiven him for jumping onto the chance of joining Barca, but if he starts adding goals for Atletico, all would be forgotten and Simeone’s army could go all the way in every competition they play in.The rest!Remember when Barcelona were the team everyone in Europe were scared to face Barcelona? Now it seems like it’s been a lifetime ago. The Catalans are fighting just to stay afloat with financial problems eating the club from the inside. Too many bad moves in the market have crippled the club in recent years and, as a result, the unthinkable has happened. They cannot afford to keep their best players and are forced to make do with freebies from other clubs. Simply put, the club is a shambles. But under all that, there are still fine players at Camp Nou. The only problem is, they are not good enough to compete against Europe’s best sides.Aguero sent a warning to Barcelona’s Champions League opponentsJuventus find themselves in a bit of a mess, too. Three years ago, they went all out and made Cristiano Ronaldo the best-paid player in Italy just so that they would finally win the Champions League again. Well, that didn’t end well for the Bianconeri. Three years have passed, Ronaldo has since gone, and did they win the UCL? No. In fact, they also surrendered the Serie A title to Inter. Old boss Massimiliano Allegri returned to the club to get them to the top again, but their start of the 2021/22 campaign is less than encouraging. They’ve only won a single point from their three opening fixtures.Inter were also pressed to sell their best players. They waited for a decade to win the title in Italy but their delight was short-lived. Departures of Hakimi and Lukaku, their best players, weakened the team significantly. They pulled off a coup by snatching Turkish playmaker Hakan Calhanoglu from rivals AC Milan, but it doesn’t seem enough. The competition in Italy will likely prove too strong for them. And in Europe? Well, they don’t stand a chance, really.New season, new Champions League ball 👀 pic.twitter.com/i8CZfPnW22— Goal (@goal) September 14, 2021 There you have it. Congratulations if you made it to this point. It’s going to be a thrilling season in Europe’s best competition. And you’re welcome to follow it with us at Mozzart Sport Kenya!CHAMPIONS LEAGUEGroup stageTuesday19.45: (8.50) Young Boys (4.70) Man.Utd. (1.43)19.45: (1.75) Sevilla (3.70) Salzburg (5.40)22.00: (3.50) Barcelona (3.60) Bayern (2.15)22.00: (3.35) Dynamo Kyiv (3.10) Benfica (2.45)22.00: (2.60) Villareal (3.20) Atalanta (3.00)22.00: (3.00) Lille (3.10) Wolfsburg (2.65)22.00: (1.25) Chelsea (6.75) Zenit (13.0)22.00: (6.25) Malmo (3.80) Juventus (1.65)Wednesday19.45: (5.90) Besiktas (4.20) Dortmund (1.62)19.45: (4.40) Sheriff Tiraspol (3.50) Shakhtar (1.95)22.00: (14.0) Club Brugge (7.00) PSG (1.23)22.00: (1.33) Man.City (5.90) RB Leipzig (9.50)22.00: (1.65) Atl.Madrid (3.60) Porto (6.75)22.00: (1.55) Liverpool (4.40) Milan (6.50)22.00: (3.05) Sporting (3.35) Ajax (2.50)22.00: (2.60) Inter (3.40) Real Madrid (2.85)***odds are subject to change
