Features

Mourinho plots Barca's downfall

Author: Lynda Collins
Date: 15/09/2009
Football betting

Wednesday's Champions League games see several of the favourites to win this year's competition in European action for the first time this season.

The stand-out game is certainly Internazionale against Barcelona when Jose Mourinho meets up with a team that he had several epic battles with when he was the manager of Chelsea.

Pep Guardiola's side were famously treble winners last term and are already the online favourites to retain the trophy they so memorably won in May with that stupendous display against Manchester United.

Inter and Barca swapped strikers in the summer, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic now plying his trade in the Catalan capital while Mourinho received Cameroon international Samuel Eto'o and a wad of cash in return.

However, such is the relative paucity of talent currently to be seen in Italy, certainly compared with Spain and England, that it would be quite a shock if Inter were to beat Barca this week, even at the San Siro.

Can Jose Mourinho guide his Internazionale side to victory against Barcelona? - Latest Champions League Betting

Elsewhere, Scotland's only representatives in the competition, last season's domestic league winners Rangers, have a very tough opening game against a Stuttgart side that includes the likes of Jens Lehmann, Yildiray Basturk, Alex Hleb and Pavel Pogrebnyak in their ranks.

Despite starting slowly in the Bundesliga, Stuttgart should have enough quality to beat the best that Scottish football can currently offer.

Liverpool, despite losing Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa in the summer to Real Madrid, should have far too much quality for last term's Hungarian League winners Debrecen, who have already had to beat Kalmar, Levadia Tallinn and Levski Sofia to reach this stage.

Arsenal have all the tools required to become a formidable presence in Europe but face a tough first game against a Standard Liege side that has been Belgian champions in the last two seasons.

The Gunners are in a transitional phase after selling Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure to Manchester City in the summer but Andrei Arshavin and Cesc Fabregas can unlock any backline.

Standard came within a whisker of beating Liverpool last season in the qualifying round of Europe's premier competition, before comfortably beating Everton in the UEFA Cup.

Russian champions Rubin Kazan are something of an unknown quantity and will be keen to show their credentials against last term's beaten UEFA cup semi-finalists Dinamo Kiev.

Unirea Urziceni are the rank outsiders and their squad is made up of largely unknown players outside Romania who helped the club clinch their first domestic title last term. They are unlikely to get anything from their trip to southern Spain on Wednesday when they face Sevilla.

Elsewhere, Lyon entertain a Fiorentina team that have taken seven points from their first three Serie A matches, while Olympiacos face last season's Dutch League champions AZ Alkmaar.

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