Celtic v Real Madrid

Defending Champions League winners Real Madrid are excellent value to kick off the new campaign with a victory against Celtic at Parkhead. Los Blancos do throw in the occasional curveball result in the group stages – they have lost to Sheriff and Shakhtar Donetsk in each of the last two seasons – but they should prove too strong for the Scottish champions.

Los Blancos will travel with virtually a full squad of players open to them for this match. Furthermore, they won all three of their group stage road trips last season.

Madrid might have kept three clean sheets from three in their away games last term, but they face a challenge to do so again at Celtic Park. Ange Postecoglou has promised his team will adopt their usual attacking approach for this game, which should, therefore, be open and exciting.

Although Celtic are reputed to have a strong European record at home, that has not been particularly in evidence in recent seasons. Last term, they were humbled by Bodo/Glimt in the Conference League and were notably hammered 4-0 by Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League.

Of course, the home side will draw energy from the crowd as they seek to back up their fine 4-0 win over Rangers at the weekend, but the type of gifts presented to them on that occasion by the Gers will not be so forthcoming against Europe’s finest side. With key man Kyogo Furuhashi a doubt, they face a major challenge.

Sevilla v Manchester City

While Manchester City fans might think that they’ve had a below-par start to the 2022/23 season, that’s nothing compared to what Sevilla have suffered. Julen Lopetegui’s side have taken just one point so far from the opening four LaLiga games. The most recent one was a 3-0 demolition by Barcelona in front of their own fans and, while that was always going to be a tough fixture, their other three games were very winnable ones against Osasuna, Real Valladolid and Almería. 

When you look into it, Sevilla’s poor start to the campaign is no surprise. After starting last season well, they already dropped off towards the end of 2021/22 and were only the seventh best team in LaLiga over the second half of last season. Then, they had a very disappointing transfer window, most notably losing starting central defensive pairing Jules Koundé and Diego Carlos, but also getting weaker all over the pitch.

The combination of poor transfer dealings and the fact that Lopetegui’s possession-based philosophy seems to have gone stale means that Sevilla are one of the weakest teams in the Champions League this season. 

They were already awful in last year’s group stage, taking just six points from arguably the easiest of the eight groups, as they went up against Lille, RB Salzburg and Wolfsburg. This year, it surely won’t be as forgiving and Manchester City are, of course, the definition of unforgiving.

Despite their mixed results, City have been scoring an average of 3.33 goals per game to start their own campaign and Pep Guardiola will be licking his lips at Sevilla’s poor form and the fact that the Spanish side may once again have just one fit “senior” centre-back, the 20-year-old Tanguy Nianzou, available for this game because of injuries to the others. Expect a big City win.

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