Real bid for 10th title faces strong challenge
When Real Madrid added Ronaldo to an already hugely rich squad this season there seemed little to stop them from winning the European Cup for the 10th time.
When Real Madrid added Ronaldo to an already hugely rich squad this season there seemed little to stop them from winning the European Cup for the 10th time.
Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, who scored a brilliant goal when the Spanish club won the last final in Glasgow in May, Figo and Roberto Carlos have featured regularly on lists of Europe's and the world's top three players.
But a Champions League second group stage that almost reads like a roll call of Europe's greatest clubs, including the return of 1960s giants Inter Milan from a lean spell, will put up stern resistance to the Madrid monopoly.
Real and Inter have featured in some stirring encounters in the world's greatest international club competition, including the 1964 final in which the Italians won 3-1 to lift the first of their two back-to-back titles.
The last time the all-white strip of Real came up against the black-and-blue stripes of Inter was at the group stage in the 1998/99 season and Ronaldo was with the Italian team.
Ronaldo played when Inter lost 2-0 away, he was missing injured when the Italians won 3-0 in Milan in their very last encounter. Both sides went out in the quarter-finals.
Inter are in the same group as 1992 winners Barcelona, who as Real's arch enemies in Spain have found their record success in Europe especially hard to swallow.
The two should emerge from Group A which also includes outsiders Bayer Leverkusen, weaker than the side that reached last season's final, and Newcastle United to carry on their challenge in the knockout stages.
Real are in Group C where they meet the second most successful club, five-times winners AC Milan, 1997 champions Borussia Dortmund and Lokomotiv Moscow, who won only their first Russian league crown on Thursday.
Italy's challenge looks strong again after they had only two teams in the second group stage last year and remarkably failed to get any into the quarter-finals.
Milan, superb 4-0 winners against Barcelona in their last final in Athens in 1994, should go through with Real.
In group D, Juventus will meet Manchester United, who beat them 3-2 away in the memorable second leg of their 1999 semi-final which catapulted the English club to their second title.
The two seasoned campaigers face tough matches against Deportivo Coruna, one of four Spanish sides also in the last 16, and the surprise qualifiers Basel.
Of four tough pools, the tightest is probably Group B where a resurgent Ajax are the only former winners among four evenly matched sides including the bookmakers' joint second favourites Valencia, Roma and Arsenal.