Yesterday August 31, 2023 took place the most important soccer draw of the year, the UEFA Champions League draw for the 2023-2024 season. The draw left several surprises with very interesting groups that I will tell you about in this post so read until the end so you don't miss any details.
Group A
Group A is made up of German giants Bayern Munich, Manchester United, FC Copenhagen and finally Galatasaray. The duel between Bayern Munich and Manchester United will be a very interesting match as Bayern was reinforced up front with former Tottenham striker Harry Kane who already debuted with goals and assists in the current Bundesliga season, on the other hand Manchester United with Casemiro and Rashford should try to play a good game and score points against Bayern. FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray do not have such an easy task against the German giants and one of the best teams in the Premier League but this is soccer and anything can happen on the pitch in 90 minutes.
Group B
This group was formed by Sevilla who qualified to this edition of Champions 2023-2024 by being the champion of the Europa League in the 2022-2023 season, Arsenal, PSV and Lens. It will also be very interesting to see the clash between Sevilla and Arsenal as Sevilla played a very good match in the final of the last Europa League against the English team Manchester United and this time we will see how they react in a match against another great English team like Arsenal. PSV and Lens will have difficult games against Sevilla and Arsenal but still anything can happen.
Group C
This group C was formed by Napoli, champions of the past Seria A 2022-2023, by the so-called King of Europe Real Madrid, maximum winner of this competition with 14 European Cups, by SP Braga and Uníon Berlin. Napoli with the excellent striker Victor Osimhen will face head to head against Real Madrid with Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo Goes and the current star signing Englishman Jude Bellingham, it will be a game of the highest level of European soccer. SP Braga will have the very difficult task of facing Napoli, Real Madrid and Uníon Berlin and they are not so much favorites to qualify to the round of 16 but with a good level of soccer they can win points in the group stage and climb positions, on the other hand Uníon Berlin who in the last Bundesliga had good games against big teams in Germany and is not an easy team neither for Napoli nor for Real Madrid so the favorites in this group should not be confident when facing Uníon Berlin.
Group D
It was formed by Benfica team of the current star signing the Argentinean world champion Ángel Di María and the other world champion Nicolas Otamendi, by the sub champion of the last UEFA Champions League 2022-2023 Inter Milan of Lautaro Martínez, another world champion, by RB Salzburg and by Real Sociedad. It will be very interesting to see this clash between world champions when they meet face to face in the duel between Benfica and Inter Milan, both teams are the favorites of the group, on the other hand RB Salzburg with good soccer could score points and try to climb the table to qualify for the next round and Real Sociedad without many signings this season will also try to score points and qualify for the next phase but they have no easy task anyway this is soccer and on magical nights anything can happen on the field.
Group E
It was formed by Feyenoord, Cholo Simeone's Atlético de Madrid, Lazio and Celtic. We will see those great duels of Atletico Madrid of Morata, Depay and Antoine Griezmann against Lazio of Ciro Immobile who in the last season the team in Seria A made good matches against great Italian teams, and against Feyenoord who will try to make good matches to qualify to the next round as well as Celtic.
Group F
The group with the best duels of the current UEFA Champions League, will be formed by the PSG of Kylian Mbappé, Dembélé and Marco Asensio, by the Borussia Dortmund of Marco Reus, the Milan of Giroud and Leao and the English team Newcastle that in the last Premier League season won excellent matches that helped them to climb positions and thus qualify for the current UEFA Champions League. In this group you can not choose a favorite team because the 4 are excellent, PSG, Milan which is the second largest winner of European Cups, Dormunt which is another giant in Germany and this Newcastle that with good soccer managed to qualify to the UEFA Champions League and with the same good soccer can qualify to the next round.
Group G
Here in this group is the current defending champion of the last UEFA Champions League 2022-2023 Manchester City with Kevin De Bruyne, Grealish, the new signing in midfield Mateo Kovacic and with Haland who was awarded as the best player of the last UEFA Champions League and this year they will try to win the Champions League again, the other team is RB Leipzig, the Red Star team and Young Boys, the favorite of the group is Manchester City but first to qualify will have to have more points than the others and for that you have to win the matches and can not be confident with any because there may be a surprise if they are confident, RB Leipzig if you want to go through the round will also have to score points like the other teams in the group.
Group H
To close the last group was formed by the champion of the Spanish League 2022-2023 FC Barcelona, by Porto, Shakhtar and Antwerp. FC Barcelona has 2 seasons in a row of UEFA Champions League that is left out of the next phase that led him to the Europa League in which he has not had much luck, in this new Champions League season will have the opportunity to return to qualify for the next phase and thus return to win a UEFA Champions League, it can do so with the help of Lewandoski, Gundogan former Manchester City player and current Barcelona signing who came to the team as a free agent, Of the jewel of Gavi and Pedri but for that they must score points and thus qualify but Porto will not let it so easy so they will have to give a good level in the matches without being confident, Shakhtar will also try to make a good game to FC Barcelona and Porto to qualify for the next phase, Antwerp will try to score points in this competition but will not have it easy just have to wait for the games to start and make good soccer.
This was a summary of the draw for the UEFA Champions League 2023-2024, this is how all the groups were formed, the start of this new edition will be on September 19 and will culminate with the final at Wembley Stadium in London on June 1, 2024, I hope you liked the information.
Translation by DeepL Traslate.
The images were edited by me with Canva.
Image credits: https://es.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/