The Champions League starts this week with five Premier League clubs in the 36-team lineup, chasing a first title for England in four seasons after yet another transfer window of heavy spending amid an affordability crisis for most of European soccer.
Two-time defending title holder Paris Saint-Germain and record 15-time European champion Real Madrid each has lifted the trophy as many times this decade, twice, as Premier League clubs have combined.
Manchester City, the last English team to win the Champions League in 2023, starts Tuesday at Porto armed with a new $440 million midfield: Enzo Fernandez, Elliot Anderson and 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi.
Liverpool hosts Atletico Madrid on Wednesday having paid PSG 125 million euros ($145 million) to add Bradley Barcola and can start a forward line with three of the 13 most expensive transfer fees in soccer history, alongside Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz.
Nine of the top-10 transfer fees this offseason were paid by English clubs. The exception was Real Madrid’s 125 million euros ($145 million) buy of 19-year-old Ivory Coast winger Yan Diomande from Leipzig.
If Madrid wins this Champions League under José Mourinho, its prize money from UEFA out a 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) total fund would just about cover Diomande’s fee and the returning coach’s salary. Madrid starts against Inter Milan on Tuesday.
PSG’s biggest buy this offseason — midfielder Maghnes Akliouche for 50 million euros ($58 million) from Monaco — did not even make the top-30 transfer fees worldwide this offseason.
On Wednesday, PSG hosts Slovan Bratislava to start its quest for a third straight title.
In the 35-season Champions League era, only Real Madrid coached by Zinedine Zidane — who is now finally in charge of the France national team — won three straight, from 2016 to ’18.
It was simpler in the old European Cup format that was a straight knockout bracket for national champions plus the defending champion. Madrid won the first five finals, starting in 1956, then Ajax and Bayern Munich each went back-to-back-to-back in the 1970s.
José Mourinho first coached Real Madrid in 2010 when he left Inter Milan upon delivering a Champions League title.
Mourinho has returned to Madrid for a second spell 16 years later, still with the same two career Champions League titles he had then. The road to a third starts Tuesday at home to Inter in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium where that 2010 final was won against Bayern.
Inter is among five clubs apart from Madrid in this Champions League edition that Mourinho has coached, and the Italian champion is led by one of his players from the 2010 title team, Cristian Chivu.
Mourinho was Manchester United coach in 2017 when a club called Sabah was created in Azerbaijan. Nine years on, Sabah makes its Champions League debut Thursday at Old Trafford to face a United team coached by Michael Carrick who was captain back then for Mourinho.
Como coached by Cesc Fabregas debuts hosting Leipzig on Thursday in its small Giuseppe Sinigaglia Stadium in perhaps the most picturesque location in the competition.
The other debutants are Austrian champion LASK, thanks to a stunning turnaround against Celtic in the playoffs, and Norway’s champion Viking.
Now in its third season, the revamped Champions League format gives each of the 36 teams eight games against eight different opponents, with four at home and four away.
The top eight in the standings on Jan. 27 advance direct to the seeded bracket for the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th enter the two-leg knockout playoffs round in February. Teams from 25th to 36th are eliminated.
