On Wednesday the two UEFA Champions League favourites go head-to-head as Manchester City host PSG.
Pep Guardiola’s men will be looking for revenge after going down 2-0 in the French capital in September and victory would secure the reigning English champions a first-place finish in Group A.
Manchester City are favourites to win the Champions League with SBD at +350, followed by PSG (+400) and Bayern Munich (+550).
The clash will also provide a test of PSG’s mettle. Mauricio Pochettino was brought in to take the French giants to the next level - specifically by ending their wait for a first ever Champions League crown.
PSG went big in pre-season, investing in two new full-backs in Nuno Mendes and Achraf Hakim, while also bringing in goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum, from Milan and Liverpool respectively.
The key arrivals in PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi’s quest to the summit of European football, however, were two former multiple winners: Sergio Ramos and Lionel Messi.
But neither offer any guarantees. Messi has linked up Neymar and Kylian Mbappe to form the world’s most glamorous front-three, but their lack of work off the ball leaves PSG looking weak without the ball and unable to implement Pochettino’s high-pressing approach.
Ramos, meanwhile, is yet to make an appearance for the club as he struggles to overcome injuries.
A group-stage double over out-and-out favourites City, however, would go some way to proving PSG’s doubters wrong.
City look as strong as ever after adding £100 million-man Jack Grealish to bolster the guile of an attack that already outscored everyone in the country last season. Pep, too, is on a quest for his club’s first ever UCL crown and will be desperate to go one better after falling to Chelsea in last season’s final.
They have once again been flying in the group stage, despite that defeat to PSG. The Citizens are averaging 3.4 expected goals (xG) per game in the competition this term; since the start of 2013-14, this is the highest per game average by a team in the group stage in a single UEFA Champions League campaign.
But last season - and this season, going into Matchday 5 - they have been outscored by other favourite for the crown: Bayern Munich.
GettyThe German giants saw off PSG in the final two years ago and have looked unbeatable at times throughout the group stage so far.
Bayern Munich have scored 4+ goals in their last three UEFA Champions League matches, winning 5-0 against Dynamo Kyiv and 4-0 and 5-2 against Benfica. It’s the first time they’ve done so in the European Cup since October 1972, while no side has ever done so in four consecutive European Cup/Champions League matches since it was formed in 1955.
And in Robert Lewandowski they have probably the best striker in the world right now. The Polish international is the UEFA Champions League top scorer with eight goals in four games – in Champions League history, only Luiz Adriano in 2014-15 for Shakhtar Donetsk has ever scored more goals in a team’s first four matches in a campaign, netting nine.
The earliest a player has reached double figures for goals is MD5 – set by Lewandowski himself in 2019-20.
With a 100% record in the UCL so far this term and already qualified for the knockout stages, Bayern under new coach Julian Nagelsmann look not to have missed a beat.