Three time European/Champions League winning club, most successful English team ever and one of the biggest football teams in world football return to the Champions League tonight. After winning the Europa League last season to gain automatic qualification to this season’s Champions League, I assess why Man Utd could win the Champions League.
The Special One
Jose Mourinho is a serial winner, he’s won trophies in every club he’s been at including two Champions League trophies and two Europa League/UEFA Cup trophies. He is level in the trophy hail with the greats of Alex Ferguson, Bob Paisley and Nereo Rocco (AC Milan) who have won a total of 4 European trophies. Jose has the nuance to thread through the Champions League and win games where he is unlikely to be applauded for his style.
Back Bone
Man Utd’s spine of their team is very strong this year, with arguably the world’s best goalkeeper between the sticks in David De Gea, a strong centre half in Eric Bailly, midfield pairing of Nemanja Matic and Paul Pogba, spearheaded by the imposing Belgian Romelu Lukaku. United will be physically imposing against most teams.
Previous Winners
Although this may well be the first time for some players to play in Europe’s premier competition, United do contain previous UCL winners in their team such as Matic & Mata who can guide the younger players through tough games. Not to mention, they did win Europa League in May!
Return of the Lion
If United can progress through the group stage, they will have Zlatan back from injury who could prove just as pivotal as a new signing for £50M. He has won the UCL before and wants to finish his United with a bang, what better way than winning the Champions League with the Manchester club.
However great the above may sound and get you excited, a successful and more realistic finish to the UCL campaign would be a quarter final appearance and losing out to Real Madrid/Bayern Munich. Which I'm sure no one will knock in United's first year back. However knowing United and Mourinho they will not want anything less than the trophy itself.