No one expects Barcelona to struggle to win their Champions League group, but they’ll face a serious test in at least four of their games this season. Bayer Leverkusen and AS Roma are no pushovers, and second place in Group E might be determined by which one of them manages to get points off the Blaugrana.
Champions League draw results 2015: Poor Roma, Bayer Leverkuen draw Barcelona in Group E
While the lack of a great fourth team prevents this group being a proper Group of Death, the top three in Group E are all excellent.
The fourth team in Group E is BATE Borisov, who are going to seriously struggle to get any points.
Group winners: Barcelona
Their transfer ban has left them pretty thin, but Barcelona are probably still the best team in the world. Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez are both fit and in form, while Neymar should be back from the mumps shortly. The Blaugrana’s biggest concern is likely about Andres Iniesta, who has a lot of games on his legs and is starting to look like it. Don’t be surprised if they start rotating in Rafinha Alcantara into his spot in La Liga to keep Iniesta fresh for Champions League games.
Runners-up: Bayer Leverkusen
Second place is a bit of a toss-up, but on the evidence of their early games, Bayer are a better side than Roma. In their playoff match against Lazio, their DFB-Pokal game and their two early Bundesliga contests, they’ve looked like a team that finally understands how to defend in Roger Schmidt’s extremely up-tempo, counter-pressing style. They’re about to sell Son Heung-Min to Tottenham Hotspur, but youngster Julian Brandt looks more than capable of picking up the scoring load.
Europa League: AS Roma
While Roma’s summer transfer policy was thoroughly insane and will cripple them in the future, it’s not going to hurt them at all this year. Their old and/or overpriced signings are only going to come back to bite them when they aren’t good anymore and no one is willing to pay a transfer fee to sign them. But for now, they’ll probably be a very good team. Not as good as Bayer, but still good.
Out of Europe: BATE Borisov
This BATE team isn’t as good as the one that upset Bayern Munich a few years ago, but it’ll still be fun to watch Alex Hleb limp around and do stepovers on the very few occasions he actually gets the ball.
Player to watch: Alessandro Florenzi
He’s not Roma’s most flashy player, but he never stops running. Florenzi is one of the most complete midfielders in Serie A and does just as much to make teammates better as he does to create shooting opportunities for himself.
Key match: Roma vs. Bayer - Matchday 4
Possibly the decisive match in who goes through to the knockout round, provided Roma haven’t dug themselves a hole already.
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