10 TO ANSWER
B
ack in the mists of time, it was
no rare occurrence for an Eastern
European team to make a splash
in the continent’s most prestigious
competition. CSKA Sofia (1982) and Dynamo
Kiev (1999) were worthy semi-finalists, while
Steaua Bucharest (1986) and Red Star
Belgrade (1991) even had the temerity
to win the crown outright.
Now, it’s an entirely different ball game.
Outfits from England, Spain, Germany, Italy
and France call the shots.
One only has to look at the poor showing of
the Eastern contingent in recent times. In each- Can Benzema stay
as sharp?
There’s absolutely no reason to believe that
Real Madrid’s French frontman will lose his
taste for Champions League end-product.
His record is extraordinary: 65 goals in total
for Lyon and Real in the competition and at
least four strikes in every one of his last ten
Champions League campaigns.- How will Ronald Koeman
pull Barcelona out of the
mire?
A good start would be to switch from the
Catalan side’s usual 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1. This
tweak would allow Koeman to use Dutch
midfielder Frenkie deJong in his favourite role
as one of two pivots in front of the backline.
DeJong is at his best picking the ball up from
the centre-backs and advancing with it.9.Will Ajax repeat their
heroics of 2018-19?Probably not. Many of that platinum generation
(Matthijs de Ligt, Frenkie deJong, Hakim Ziyech)
have left for pastures new. While they do have
an exciting new crop of youngsters in midfielder
Ryan Gravenberch, forward Mohammed Kudus
and new Brazilian frontrunner Antony, they are
not sufficiently ripe to take Europe by storm.10.Italy’s next top coach?
Despite a marked shortage of squad options,
Lazio’s Simone Inzaghi managed to wring
every last drop of value from the players at
his disposal in 2019-20. His side was always
meticulously organised and his matchday
strategies more often than not worked a
treat. Few teams in Europe are better than
Lazio at setting up for shots on goal.- Any chance
of an Eastern
uprising?
of the past four seasons, only one team
(Shakhtar in 2017-18) has made it through
to the knockout stage and results in the group
phase last term were especially unedifying,
with the likes of Shakhtar, Dinamo Zagreb,
Lokomotiv Moscow, Zenit, Red Star Belgrade
and Slavia Prague recording just six victories
between them.
Which of the Eastern sides are the most
likely to still be standing next spring? Shakhtar,
seem the best equipped, blessed with a swathe
of top-class Brazilians and led by a very smart
tactician and team-builder in the Portuguese
Luis Castro. The Miners might have shown
their limitations when thumped 5-0 by
Internazionale in a Europa League semi-final in
August, but generally have a good track record
of springing surprises. Last season, they weregood enough to hold Manchester City1-1 at
the Etihad Stadium and pulled off a great 2-1
win at eventual quarter-finalists Atalanta.
Russian champions Zenit may have a
number of trump cards to play too. They have
the cutting edge infrastructure, the financial
backing of the Gazprom energy giants and a
squad that is qualitatively and quantitatively
fit for purpose. Coach Sergei Semak, once
a stylish Russian international midfielder,
deserves much praise, not only for assembling
a well-balanced, tactically-aware line-up, but
also for rooting out the dressing room cliques
which regularly undermined the cause.
Semak’s latest experiment involves
deploying nominal Brazilian winger Malcom
as a ‘nine-and-a-half’ behind twin-strikers
Artem Dzyuba and Sardar Azmoun.