Group-By-Group Breakdown for a Champions League Featuring Unique Factors

Now that the groups are set for the compressed opening stage, who will go through to the last 16, and where may the surprises occur?

The draw for the Champions League always evokes mixed emotions. On the one hand, this is the start for the big clubs of the competition that, in its later stages, produces the best football that has ever been played. But on the other, the group stage can be a slog, the disparity between the rich and the less well-off so stark, the qualifiers so predictable, that the pre-Christmas fixtures can feel like an exercise less in elite sport than in filling the TV schedules and making money.

This season, though, is a little different, in that the six games of the group…