Five out of eight Champions League groups are being led by Premier League teams. Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspurs, and Chelsea all lead their groups after three matches. In the other three groups, Barcelona, PSG and Turkey’s surprising Besiktas are tops. Perhaps there is something in the water or at least in the bottled type the many super-coaches now plying their trade in the Premier League drink.
Especially impressive have been the two Manchester team’s dominant first three matches and Tottenham’s 1-1 draw at the Santiago Bernabeu. Chelsea has been showing lengthy spans of great football punctuated by unfortunate and key moments where they simply have a loss of concentration.
Barcelona have been alternating between playing well and being lucky, Besiktas has gone off to a great start and Real Madrid seem to be a few revolutions away from finding their fifth gear. Meanwhile, PSG continues to look the class of the competition playing lose and attacking soccer, with both the highest number of goals scored through three matches (12) and the least number of goals allowed (0).
It won’t be until December 5th at Allianz Arena that we will see how Bayern Munich plays the PSG team that won 3-0 at Parc des Princes in September. Atletico Madrid has a home game against Roma and an away match at Chelsea that will jointly seal the Spanish side’s fate in this Champions League. Sevilla, with an up and down performance so far, are nevertheless only one point behind joint leaders Liverpool and Spartak Moscow. So, the second legs of all their matches allow for a comeback. Real Madrid’s next match, at Wembley will settle the group leadership and will be the telling game of the group.
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