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Pep Guardiola could hardly have picked a more favorable Champions League draw for Manchester City had he tried.
City will face FC Porto, Olympiacos and Marseille in Group C, with draws to be played over the next three months. It is a group in which City is confident of winning, or qualifying for the knockout stages at least.
By avoiding players like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus, Atalanta and RB Leipzig, City can really establish themselves as a group favorite, without any of the biggest European teams or the kinds of teams that have caused them problems in recent years. .
While all three teams deserve all the respect and can easily cause a surprise if City are not in their full game, Guardiola will be delighted to have a group with relatively simple travel requirements in the midst of a hectic match schedule.
Exact matches are posted later today, with the trip to Olympiacos the toughest away draw on paper – they held Tottenham to a 2-2 draw in Athens last season, before leading 2-0 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium before José Mourinho’s men ran out. 4-2 winners.
And with some key Premier League matches on either side of the six Champions League games, City have the opportunity to manage the squad to tackle the three-game weeks and compete on two fronts before the teams return. national cups.
The first three group matches, which begin October 20/21, are in consecutive weeks, with matches against West Ham (A), Sheffield United (A) and Liverpool (H) after each match.
That Liverpool match already appears to be crucial if City have any hopes of fighting for the title this season, so their Champions League opponent before that could determine how easy the week leading up to that clash is.
Liverpool have attracted Ajax, Atalanta and FC Midtjylland, which is, on paper at least, a slightly tougher group. If the matches go well, City would expect an easier home game with Liverpool away at Ajax or Atalanta.
After the international break in November, a difficult trip to Spurs in the Premier League precedes another three consecutive weeks of action in the Champions League.
The games that follow each of the last three games are two favorable home games against Burnley and Fulham, before a trip to Manchester United.
That United game could be another crucial one in the title race, as they lost twice to rivals in the league last season. At the time, however, City could well have qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League, while United have a very difficult group with PSG, RB Leipzig and Istanbul Basaksehir.
In an ideal world, City could put some key players to rest before that game, having already secured passage to the knockout stages in Europe.
This is all hypothetical, of course, and last season showed that City are capable of failing in Europe if they are not in their prime.
But at least they have a group that should restore confidence in Europe after last season’s outing, while allowing Guardiola to rotate his squad to maintain his national and European hopes heading into the new year.
With one game every three days for the next three months, excluding international breaks, it looks like City is finally getting a boost when it comes to the match roster.
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