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After a two month hiatus the Champions League is back on Paramount+ and CBS. To be frank, precious little has changed at the top table of European football but then, whenever does it? Manchester City once more bestride the winter months like a colossus, the sheer weight of talent they have across the squad allowing them to reel off a string of victories as others limp their way through the festive fixture list.
Much as City have seemingly wrapped up their Premier League title, so Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain have streaked away from the competition. The former look to be the most likely side to stop Pep Guardiola winning his first European Cup in the decade. The presumptive Bundesliga champions and Liverpool exist in the highest of echelons not least because these two teams know exactly what is required to claim this prize. At both Anfield and the Allianz Arena, there is something of an institutional composure when this time of the season rolls around. These teams know what is required to cross the finishing line in Saint-Petersburg three-plus months from now.
The same cannot be said of City nor Paris Saint-Germain, for whom this particular competition has become an obsession now that they have nuked the competitive landscape of Ligue 1. The same question — is this team battle hardened enough for the business end of the European calendar — will hover over their head for however long they are in this competition. Against a Real Madrid team managed by Champions League master Carlo Ancelotti, it is up for debate just how much of PSG we will see in this competition.
At the start of the season, the Parisians sat firmly near the top of our rankings but their squad has rarely, if ever, played football as enticingly in real life as it does in the virtual world. Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe are a “FIFA 22” player’s dream. In the Champions League, Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France,…
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Source : cbssports
