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Champions League: Bayern battle City, Milan against Barcelona


Reigning European champions Bayern Munich were paired with Manchester City for this season’s Champions League group stage, while the draw was particularly unkind for Arsenal and Celtic.
The draw, made in Monaco on Thursday evening, threw up several mouthwatering ties as well as bringing together plenty of familiar foes.
Under Pep Guardiola, Bayern are looking to become the first club to retain the European Cup in the Champions League era.
They were drawn in Group D along with Manchester City, the Premier League giants who previously faced the Bavarians in the 2011-12 competition.
On that occasion, City finished bottom of their section while Bayern went all the way to the final, and Roberto Mancini’s side also failed to progress from their group last season.
This time, though, City are expected to pose a greater threat under Chilean coach Manuel Pellegrini, who has taken Villarreal and Malaga to the latter stages in the past and came up against Guardiola’s Barcelona when in charge of Real Madrid in 2009-10.
Those two clubs are likely to fight it out for first place in a group that also contains Russian champions CSKA Moscow and Czech club Viktoria Plzen.
The draw was even kinder to 2012 European champions Chelsea. The Blues will face Bundesliga club Schalke, 1986 European Cup winners Steaua Bucharest and FC Basel, who lost to Chelsea in the Europa League semi-finals last season, in Group E.
David Moyes, though, will not be taking the opposition lightly in what will be his first Champions League campaign at the helm of Manchester United.
The English champions will be favourites to qualify for the last 16 from Group A but they must still face Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk, Spanish outfit Real Sociedad and Bayer Leverkusen.
The German side beat United in the 2002 semi-finals and are now coached by former Liverpool defender Sami Hyypia.
Arsenal came off worst of all, the English contenders in a Group F that contains last season’s runners-up Borussia Dortmund, Marseille and Napoli.
The Gunners faced Dortmund and Marseille in the group stage two seasons ago, but will be especially wary of Napoli, whose coach Rafael Benitez is a specialist at this level and who, in Gonzalo Higuain, boast a striker who might have joined Arsenal earlier this summer.
Group H is bustling with history, as Barcelona, AC Milan, Ajax and Celtic — with 16 European Cups between them — come together.
This will be third consecutive season in which Barca and Milan have met.

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