History isn’t on Barcelona’s side.
No team has won back-to-back European Cup titles since the great AC Milan teams with Dutchmen Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard did in 1989 and 1990.
Rijkaard is now coach of Barcelona, which begins the defense of its UEFA Champions League title against Levski Sofia on Tuesday. Barca retains Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto’o up front and has strengthened its backline with the addition of Lilian Thuram and Gianluca Zambrotta from Juventus.
Its toughest challenger could Chelsea, which opens Tuesday against Werder Bremen at Stamford Bridge. Barca knocked the Blues out in the second round last season. Chelsea added two experienced players in Bayern Munich midfielder Michael Ballack and AC Milan forward Andriy Shevchenko.
For Arsenal, which lost to Barcelona in the 2006 final, a championship would end its long history of suffering in Europe’s biggest competition. “We want to show that getting to the final was no accident,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said, “that we can come back and win it.”
The Gunners will hope to put their shaky start in the English Premier League behind them — they are winless in three games — when they open against Werder Bremen on Wednesday.
AC Milan is lucky to be in the Champions League. It was originally barred from participating in this year’s tournament as part of its punishment for its role in the Italian match-fixing scandal, but its points penalty was reduced to 30 points on appeal, and it thereby finished in third place in the revised Serie A standings and kept its Champions League spot. Juventus wasn’t so lucky. It was stripped of its title that it won with only loss and relegated to Serie B.
Two teams are making their debut in the Champions League: FC Copenhagen and Levski Sofia.
With the loan of DaMarcus Beasley from PSV to Manchester City, no American is expected to play in this year’s group stage of the Champions League. The only American on a Champions League roster is Benny Feilhaber of Hamburg. The UCLA product has yet to play for HSV’s first team in the Bundesliga. (Click here for numerical rosters of the 32 teams.)
This week’s two most intriguing matchups take place on Wednesday: Manchester United-Celtic and Lyon-Real Madrid. Twelve of the 16 games on the first week of action will be broadcast on American television (ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Classic, Setanta Sports USA and Setanta pay-per-view).
(Click here for this week’s Champions League TV schedule.)