It may have only been two years since Liverpool last won the Champions League, but based on their recent lacklustre knockout stage exits and the recent group stage draw for this season, it is going to take a bit of work for Jürgen Klopp to deliver a seventh European Cup back to Merseyside. The group stages look as competitive as ever, with Champions League winner odds changing constantly before a ball has even been kicked.
With so many other sides engaging in transfer activity over the summer, Liverpool have been rather quiet in comparison — moving on some deadwood and bringing in just the one signing in Ibrahima Konaté. The Reds struggled with injuries last season especially defensively, and with reinforcements coming in they will need every member of the squad to pull their weight as they face a challenging group in this year’s Champions League. Read on, as evaluate all of their opponents in this year’s competition group stage.
Atlético Madrid
Liverpool will be looking for a measure of revenge as Atlético come to town. The last time the two sides met was in 2020, serving as the last time Anfield would host a crowd for almost 19 months. The visitors went through in extra time on the night, with goal scorer Marcos Llorente adding insult to injury by naming his dog Anfield after the game. It was sheer capitulation from back up goalkeeper Adrián, whose two errors let Atléti back in the game after the Reds took the lead.
Flash forward and Diego Simeone’s side are champions of La Liga, with a familiar face leading the line — Luis Suárez. El Pistolero has punished Liverpool in European competition before and will do so again given the chance. We see this as the toughest double header of the group stage for the Merseyside outfit.
FC Porto
When looking back to their return to Champions League football, the Reds made two consecutive finals in 2018 and 2019, and they beat Porto en route to both. Many Champions League predictions were blown out of the water when Klopp’s side rolled up to town, embellished in their invincible orange kit, and decimated the Portuguese champions 5-0, and the hosts would re-live a similar fate thirteen months later as Liverpool ran rampant at the Estádio do Dragão.
Since then, the Dragões have been underwhelming domestically in the Primera Liga, missing out on the league in 2019, winning it in 2020, but then coming up short to Sporting Lisbon last season. Sérgio Conceição will be the difference maker in this tie. While his team is older and more experienced than the last one that faced Liverpool, he is tactically astute and will definitely have a game plan. They knocked out Juventus last year and are more than capable of causing another upset this season.
A.C. Milan
So much has changed in the footballing landscape since these two last competed in the Champions League. That famous night in Istanbul will be etched in Liverpool memory forever, but Milan exacted revenge two years later, winning the 2007 edition of the competition. The Rossoneri have lost their grasp on Serie A supremacy in recent years, but did manage to secure a second-place finish last season to ensure Champions League football.
Now managed by Stefano Pioli, Milan have struggled this season in its preliminary stages but with the experienced veteran Zlatan Ibrahimović leading the line, and a plethora of exciting young talent, like Sandro Tonali supplying him, European qualification may not be so straightforward as Klopp would have desired.