PSG opens Champions League campaign still winless in Ligue 1, hosts Slovan Bratislava

The Champions League league phase kicks off, and there's one stat turning heads before a ball is even kicked: PSG, the reigning two-time European champion, arrives at this matchday without a single win in its first three Ligue 1 matches. Strange, right? The club that lifted the last "Big Ears" trophy is opening its season with domestic question marks as it prepares to host Slovan Bratislava in Paris.

The opponent isn't just anybody in terms of recent pedigree, though not for the reasons you'd expect: the Slovak side lost all eight of its matches when the 36 team format debuted two seasons ago. On paper, PSG should handle this without much trouble. But Luis Enrique knows his team doesn't always hit top gear in September. In fact, in the two seasons Paris ended up lifting the continental trophy, the club finished the league phase in just 11th and 15th place out of 36 teams, forced into the February playoff round before the knockout stages even began. The Asturian coach has a pattern: save the gunpowder for the second half of the season, when things really get decided.

There's another physical factor at play that shouldn't be overlooked: eight players from the Paris squad took part in the expanded Club World Cup, which ran until the last week of July, leaving them with a pretty short offseason. And in case more context was needed about the sheer quality packed into this roster, ten PSG players showed up this week on the list of 30 nominees for the Ballon d'Or. That's worth keeping in mind for anyone tempted to sound the alarm over the rough league start.

On the other side of the pitch, there will be history in the making: Slovan's coach, Yaya Touré, will become the first African coach to lead a team in the main stage of the Champions League.

Arsenal, Liverpool and Barcelona also kick off their campaigns

This matchday's slate isn't limited to Paris. Arsenal, runner-up last May, travels to face Napoli carrying the tag of best team from the previous league phase: the Gunners finished as the competition's only unbeaten side after reeling off eight straight wins.

At Anfield, Liverpool, now under Spanish coach Andoni Iraola, hosts Atletico Madrid in a rematch of last year's opening matchday, when the Reds won 3-2 thanks to a stoppage time header from Virgil van Dijk. For Diego Simeone, who is closing in on 15 years at the helm of the Colchoneros, this will be his 14th straight season in the competition. Atletico arrives with the sting of having lost its last two visits to Anfield, though back in March 2020 it did manage to eliminate the then reigning European champion there, winning 3-2 in extra time.

And at Camp Nou, Barcelona begins its campaign against Feyenoord, coached by Giovanni van Bronckhorst, who returns to the stadium where he played for four years and won the Champions League in 2006. Rounding out the matchday are Stuttgart against Viking, Sporting Lisbon hosting Galatasaray, and the European debut of the Norwegian club, one of this edition's newcomers.