It’s the time of the year that most soccer fans look forward to — the return of the UEFA Champions League. Beginning in September, the biggest clubs in Europe start their journey through the Group stages as they try to progress through the competition and dream of an appearance in the final at the San Siro in Milan, Italy.
To help make your experience as enjoyable as possible, we’ve put together a preview, which also includes the schedule and TV times (that are available).
SEE MORE: Where to find the UEFA Champions League on US TV and streaming.
Here’s our preview of the 2015/16 UEFA Champions League group stage:
Group A
Welcome to the big stage, Malmö. After defeating Celtic in the playoff round, what is your reward? Ties against Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and Shakhtar Donetsk.
It’ll be fascinating to see how PSG’s marquee summer signing, Angel di Maria, is deployed and what impact he has particularly against his former club. Gone from the Parisian side is midfielder Yohan Cabaye but his involvement in last season’s campaign was minimal.
Real Madrid’s marquee signing never arrived. The David de Gea saga dragged on right until the last minutes of the transfer window but the deal never went through. Accusations have flown in both directions and perhaps we’ll never know what really happened. Regardless of who scuppered the deal, Real did replace a couple of parts of their starting XI. In the midfield, Croatian Mateo Kovačić has joined from Internazionale while Asier Illarramendi and Sami Khedira have departed. Khedira’s contract expired and he signed with Serie A champions Juventus. The player to watch is Danilo Luiz da Silva. Joining from Porto for €31.5M, he and fellow Brazilian Marcelo should give Real a lot of width when on the attack.
I expect PSG and Real Madrid to battle over the top 2 spots and I see PSG finishing just ahead of Real Madrid with probably a win at home and a draw away at the Spanish side. Despite the personnel loss, Douglas Costa, Luiz Adriano and Fernando all departed over the summer, Shakhtar Donetsk should have enough to get themselves into a Europa League spot.
Despite their good performance against Celtic, Malmö are unlikely to make much impact in this group.
TV schedule:
Tuesday, September 15
Real Madrid vs. Shakhtar Donetsk, 2:45pm ET, FOX Sports Net and FOX Soccer 2Go and ESPN Deportes
PSG vs Malmo, 2:45pm ET, ESPN2 and FOX Soccer 2Go, ESPN3 and WatchESPN
Bit of housekeeping, you have two games listed as airing on Fox Sports 2 at 2:45 on Tuesday (Arsenal-Bayern, BATE-Barca)
That typo was a result of a late change announced on Sunday.
Arsenal vs Bayern was bumped from FS1 to FS2 due to baseball, as both Games 4 and 5 of the American League Championship Series (Toronto Blue Jays hosting Kansas City Royals) will be played in the afternoon (4pm ET) on FS1 so that both Game 3 and 4 of the National League Championship Series (Chicago Cubs hosting New York Mets) can be played at night (8pm ET on TBS.) (Game 5 of the ALCS may not be necessary if the Kansas City Royals were to sweep. If that were to happen, then FS1 will have UEFA CL on Wednesday.)
BATE vs Barcelona was then bumped from FS2 to FSN (regional affiliates covering most major markets with the exception of Chicago, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Sacramento.)
Dynamo Kyiv vs Chelsea was then bumped from FSN (regional) to FS+ and FS2GO.com (premium subscription).
The new website UI is absolutely horrendous. I miss the old, simple layout. This website used to be so good. It’s really gone down the drain.
It’s different, I get that. But the UI is similar to one that’s used by one of the most popular websites on the Internet – Mashable.
The column on the far left features all of the new articles.
The homepage looks so scattered and there’s just so many articles, pictures and links jumping out at the reader.
A simple timeline based layout organized from newest to old like the old one you had was much better.
Giving “What’s Hot” a bigger priority over “What’s New” is very counter-intuitive. You should switch them around and make the trending articles aka “What’s New” much smaller.
I don’t see the point of “What’s Rising”.
Honestly, I’d just like to see the match threads and most up to date news/articles. It’s just my personal feedback. I’m not trying to troll or flame you.
No worries, I appreciate the honest feedback.
The left column, ‘What’s New,’ is in reverse chronological order, so the newest articles are listed first to the oldest. Give it a chance. We’ve added a ton of new writers that are producing great pieces on a variety of topics. The match threads are there too.
The older articles on the right are very confusing because they are not dated and one can get the impression that it’s current news. For instance there’s a big picture of Luke Shaw with the heading saying he’s returning home. Given that United are away today in the Champions league one might think it is current. Why not put dates on the older articles. That makes more sense.