UEFA Champions League Preview – Group B

Group B of the Champions League is thunderous when looking at all the names there – Liverpool, AC Milan, Porto, and Atletico Madrid. All four powerhouses will aim to progress to the next stage. According to the bookmakers, the Reds are the favorites, Atletico as well, but who can guarantee that these teams won’t end up outside the top two places.

Porto

The Dragons didn’t win the Portuguese league, which was a great blow to the two-time European champs. On top of that, Porto didn’t make any spectacular transfers this summer, and apart from Danilo Pereira’s official move to PSG, the Dragons didn’t earn too much.

Pepe, the left-winger from Gremio, is the newest addition, and along with Otavio and Luis Diaz, he is expected to make Porto’s front line extremely efficient. Other Pepe, the Portuguese veteran, leads the defense and is the most experienced player with 38 years.

Porto plays tough and competitive games, knowing how to play complicated games. Moderate efficiency, meaning 2 or 3 goals will be the most frequent pick in their matches.

AC Milan

The fallen giant tries to claw its way back to the top of Italy and Europe as well. Rossoneri don’t have the financial resources as before, and their transfer-window activity wasn’t as active as many would expect it to be.

Olivier Giroud and Fikayo Tomori landed for good, while several players came on loan, which is kind of a routine for Milan in the last two, three years. On the other side, two valuable pieces in the system decided to move on. Hakan Chalhanoglu “betrayed” the fans and the club signing for their nemesis, Inter Milan, while Gigi Donarrumma jumped to Paris, with a pretty nasty breakup as well.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the main man, but the Swed’s body is not as fit as before, which is why he struggles with injuries most of the time.

Atletico Madrid

Two perfect transfers have made us believe that Atleti have realistic chances of surprising everyone and going all the way in the UCL this season. Antoine Griezmann is back from Barcelona, while Rodrigo de Paul landed from Udinese, plus, young Matheus Cunha came from Hertha.

These guys are exactly what Diego Simeone needed, and we really do think that Atletico has enormous potential to reach at least the semifinals of this campaign.

Spanish champions didn’t change their style of play for one bit, and you’ll again see one very defensive-minded crew, whose primary strength is to beat down the opponent and simply suffocate its will for playing football.

Liverpool

The main question about the Reds is whether they stay healthy this year. During the 2021 campaign, we’ve seen Jurgen Klopp in all sorts of problems with injuries, and he often didn’t have 16 active and healthy players in training.

Overall, the Reds have a very good team, boosted by Ibrahima Konate, who arrived from RB Leipzig and who should be a major factor in the defense. It is needless to say that this guy has the potential to develop into new Van Dijk, only with a little bit different style of play.

All the other positions are filled superbly, and what is also important is that Liverpool doesn’t need to create chemistry like some other team. All the player know one another pretty well.

Here are the peviews for other UEFA Champions League groups:

Group A

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H