Champions League returns for a new year!

GROUP A
Man. United /Shakhtar Donetsk / Leverkusen / Real Sociedad

GROUP B
Real Madrid /Juventus / Galatasaray / København

GROUP C
Benfica / PSG /Olympiacos /Anderlecht

GROUP D
Bayern /CSKA Moskva / Man. City / Viktoria Plzeň

GROUP E
Chelsea / Schalke / Basel / Steaua Bucarest 

GROUP F
Arsenal /Marseille / Dortmund / Napoli


GROUP G
Porto / Atlético / Zenit / Austria Wien

GROUP H
Barcelona / Milan / Ajax / Celtic

In red, the favorites of each group (Except the F group because it seems very open for the first and second place)
 
Tell me, what are your predictions?  

My predictions are : 

Spoiler:

^ My predictions are similar. My prediction is Man Utd to win it all. Yes this year they'll win it under David Moyes.

My favorite to take this season's trophy is Borussia Dortmund. The team is even stronger now than last season. I never thought Gotze was as vital to the team play as Marco Reus, Gundogan and Lewandowski, or even as important as Kagawa and Sahin in past seasons. Plus, Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang are nice additions to an already powerful team.

In terms of raw player-by-player skills, I think Bayern still is the best team in the world, but only if Guardiola does not invent something bizarre during important maches, like he is putting Lahm on midfield, or playing without Javi Martinez.

Barcelona has Neymar and Real Madrid has Bale, but both teams' defenses are horrible. Playing against Barcelona, you don't even need to create scoring opportunities by yourself, just cross the ball in the area and have a decent center-foward, and you are all set. And Real Madrid with Pepe and Sergio Ramos is playing with 2 possible walking red cards.

Rank57 wrote:In terms of raw player-by-player skills, I think Bayern still is the best team in the world, but only if Guardiola does not invent something bizarre during important maches, like he is putting Lahm on midfield, or playing without Javi Martinez.

I think Guardiola is searching for one player to play as "Xavi" in his team, and he said in a interview "Lahm is the smartest player that I have already worked"

but like you, I don't like this formation. I just said the reason he's doing that formation

Rank57 wrote:Barcelona has Neymar and Real Madrid has Bale, but both teams' defenses are horrible. Playing against Barcelona, you don't even need to create scoring opportunities by yourself, just cross the ball in the area and have a decent center-foward, and you are all set. And Real Madrid with Pepe and Sergio Ramos is playing with 2 possible walking red cards.

Barcelona suffered a lot playing against Bayern without a "decisive player" besides Messi and a lot of injuries in the defensive players and Messi, but this year, we have Messi 100% (well, for now) and Neymar like the "decisive player" besides Messi.

I have to agree with you, Barça's defense is easily unsuccessful in cross balls.

So, first round is over! Impressions so far:

-Really bad day for Dortmund. Almost everything went wrong from the start. The defenders' line were too high up, Higuain could go face to face with Weindenfeller all the time, until the goalkeeper had to be sent off for intercepting the ball with his hands outside of his area. Before this, I just did not understand why Jurgen Klopp put Aubameyang in Hummels' place after his injury. Sure it was 1-0 and the team needed to attack, but at that time I was wondering how many goals Napoli would score, with ease. Second half, Napoli lost too many goals and almost saw Dortmund go for a tie, but a great match to watch anyway.

-Chelsea was the huge disappointment on this first round. I didn't see the match, but Mourinho was leaving Juan Mata on the bench, I don't know if he played. Anyway, Chelsea has numerous quality players to win against Basel, even so playing at Stamford Bridge.

-Neymar and Bale aside, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo still are by far the best players in the world. Hat-tricks, work of art by Ronaldo in his last goal against Galatasaray, and Messi as aways dominating the field.

By the way, I almost forget my predictions!

here:
GROUP A
Man. United 
Shakhtar Donetsk

GROUP B
Real Madrid
Juventus

GROUP C
Benfica
PSG

GROUP D
Bayern
Man. City

GROUP E
Chelsea
Schalke

GROUP F
Arsenal
Dortmund


GROUP G
Porto
Atlético Madrid

GROUP H
Barcelona
Milan

Second round is over!

-Manchester City has money but still can't compete against the world's bests;
-After a horrible first match, BVB is BVB again;
-Same about Chelsea;
-Ronaldo scored twice, Di Maria stole the show, but I think Real Madrid still lacks someone to do Ozil's job;
-Barcelona's defense is as fragile as aways, Celtic could've won. Barcelona without Messi is a common team;
-Arsenal is playing like a serious title contender. But I still think they need better side defender and a striker;
-It's hard to say bad things about Guardiola's new Bayern, especially when the team overrun the powerful Man. City, but it's hard to understand Lahm in the midfield, and Mandzukic in the bench. Hart could have stopped Ribery's and Robben's goals, ahd Muller's first half was bellow his average. Lahm as a side defender can add attacking power on the right side, and Mandzukic aways scores important goals. Plus, one of Muller's strenghs is appearing out of nowhere to score, which he can do less if he's the most advanced man of the team.

Last 16 draw:

Manchester City	v	Barcelona
Olympiakos	v	Manchester United
AC Milan	v	Atletico Madrid
Bayer Leverkusen	v	Paris St Germain
Galatasaray	v	Chelsea
Schalke	v	Real Madrid
Zenit	v	Dortmund
Arsenal	v	Bayern

Seems that Arsenal and Manchester City have it tough. Didier Drogba will come back to Stamford Bridge. On form Atletico Madrid will play declining AC Milan. The rest of the draws are fairly straightforward.

My prediction is Atletico Madrid will be the winner in this session

I'm hoping Arsenal can win, but Bayern will be a very tough - if not impossible - task. 
Still, Bayern, Madrid, and Barca are favourites, IMO

Chelsea supporter here~~!!

gunnersforlife wrote:I'm hoping Arsenal can win, but Bayern will be a very tough - if not impossible - task. 
Still, Bayern, Madrid, and Barca are favourites, IMO

if I'm not wrong, Arsenal almost eliminated Bayern last season... with Arsenal 1 - 3 in the first match and Arsenal 2 - 0 Bayern in the second match, they needed just 1 goal to eliminate Bayern... it's not that impossible for me, Arsenal even has a better team this season. if it's Arsenal's day against Bayern, they can get a good result in Germany to solve the match in London

Woah, quite a few surprises here in Quarter Finals :D

Chelsea - PSG (1-3; 2-0) Agg. 3-3, Chelsea move to next round because of away goal rules)
Atletico - Barca (1-1; 1-0) Agg. 2-1
Munchen - M.United (1-1; 3-1) Agg. 4-2
R.Madrid - B.Dortmund (3-0; 0-2) Agg. 3-2
source: http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2014/matches/index.html

Being a Chelsea fan, I'm extremely happy with the result. It's like Napoli all over again (maybe they can be champs again this season?   )

Atletico v Barca was the most surprising though. Then again I don't follow La Liga that much to know each team's power lol
So... any wild guesses about the Semi-final draw?

@skywing-SM

I didn't watch the game, but I watched the highlights and read a lot about... Atleti really played well, pressing Barça since the beggining of the game and scored fast, then in the second half, they were tired and did many dangerous counter-attacks. Messi played his worst game in years. It wasn't Barça day at all.

this one will be one of the most unpredictable semi-finals for me, Bayern is almost unbeatable, but they had some difficult against Manchester United what shows their defense isn't playing perfectly.

it's gonna be hard to any team beat Atleti at Vicente Calderon, but I don't think Atleti will reach the finals though, regardless the draw

Congratulations Real Madrid (and their fans too ) for their 10th Champions League title   
Not every year we get to see a derby for a UCL Final XD Definitely lots of surprises (well, for me at least) this season.