The Champions League draw was kind to Chelsea with Didier Drogba and Florent Malouda conducting. Who is who in this easy (on paper) group?
Much of Chelsea’s preparation for the first half of the season will be based around the six Champions League group stage matches. The Blues were fortunate to get a pretty straightforward group overall, but who are their opponents?
Sevilla, Spain
The two most recent winners of the Europa League will face off for top spot in the group. The Spanish side, coached by former Spain and Real Madrid manager Julen Lopetegui, reupped their Europa League kings title with an easy enough win over Antonio Conte’s Inter Milan. They also managed to finish fourth in La Liga but level on points with Atletico Madrid.
There are worse opponents Chelsea could have drawn out of pot one, but Sevilla will be no pushovers. Lopetegui has rebounded from his time at Real Madrid to show he still has the goods at club level. This is a match Chelsea will need to take completely seriously with a full strength XI home and away.
Stade Rennais, France
Edouard Mendy sure didn’t get very far away from his old club with his homecoming already set. Rennais are first timers in the Champions League but that does not mean they should be underestimated. Ligue 1 can be a bit all over the place after Paris Saint-Germain, so to finish in the top four is an accomplishment. Besides, the similarly positioned Lille showed Chelsea how dangerous a French team not named PSG can be.
That being said, like Lille, this shouldn’t be a match Chelsea should struggle with too much. The Blues may still need a strong XI (depending on how the group as a whole is doing at that time), but they should still be able to get by with depth. It depends on how the schedule shakes out for Chelsea.
Krasnodar, Russia
Another first timer in the competition, Krasnodar is the outlier in the group. The other three teams will like their chances home and away against the Russian side. The main issue (and advantage when playing at home for Krasnodar) is the amount of travel. Sevilla and Rennais are relatively close opponents but Krasnodar will be a bear travel wise.
Still, even a heavily rotated Chelsea team should be expected to squeeze by the Russian side. Any hiccups against them could prove especially costly in the long run, but the Blues should have more than enough to get the job done.
Bonus: The rest of the groups
Group A is a fun group where Salzburg could prove the spoiler. B is probably the group of death with every team perfectly capable of taking points off one another. C stands for “Of course Manchester City got an easy group, again”. Group F is basically this season’s honorary “hipsters'” group. G should be straight forward as to who goes through.
Group D and H are the two to pay the most attention to outside of Chelsea’s group E. Liverpool, Ajax, Atalanta, and even Midtjylland can all be expected to score a ridiculous amount of goals against each other. If any match finishes with less than three goals it will be a shocker.
Group H is probably the worst “what could have been” for Chelsea, but instead it is Manchester United who get to live that nightmare. Obviously PSG is tough in anymore. RB Leipzig is still trying to find a way forward without Timo Werner but Julian Nagelsmann is still one of the world’s best up and coming coaches. He is bound to have some tricks up his sleeve for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Rounding it off is a long trip to Istanbul Basaksehir. Like Chelsea’s trip to Russia, how and where that falls into the schedule could greatly affect United in the match afterwards or even before.
Chelsea’s goal this season is to advance to the knockout rounds and take it from there. How do you see this group stage going? Let us know in the comments and on Twitter!