The Champions League continues tonight and Europe’s top teams set to battle it out in the biggest club competition in the world.
The biggest talking points sees Jose Mourinho trying to turn around Chelsea’s abysmal start to the season when he returns to the club he won his first Champions League and made his name, FC Porto.
Elsewhere Arsenal will hope their loss to Dinamo Zagrab in match day one is only a blip when they welcome Olympiakos. They have won their last six home fixtures against the Greek champions.
Robert Lewandowki will hope to continue his fine run of form against Dinamo while Barcelona will face Bayer Leverkusen without the best player of 2015 so far, Lionel Messi who has been ruled out for two months with a knee injury.
Jose Mourinho drops Matic, Hazard who are replaced by Ramires and Mikel.
FACTS:
Dinamo Zagreb are currently on a 45-match unbeaten run, with their last defeat coming to Astra in November 2014.
Eden Hazard has failed to score in each of his last 12 competitive games for Chelsea (last goal vs. Crystal Palace on May 3rd).
Arsenal have lost five of their last 11 Champions League home games, this after losing just one of the previous 39
Chelsea have won 80% of their CL games against Portuguese sides, their highest ratio vs any nation faced more than 10 times.
Olympiakos have lost all 12 of their away games against English teams in European competition.
Neymar has been directly involved in 17 Champions League goals in 23 games since he joined Barcelona.
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The line-ups for the matches tonight:
Porto XI vs. Chelsea: Casillas; Maxi Pereira, Maicon, Marcano, Martins Indi; Danilo, Rúben Neves, Imbula; Brahimi, Aboubakar, André André.
Chelsea XI vs. Porto: Begovic; Ivanovic, Zouma, Cahill, Azpilicueta; Mikel, Fabregas; Ramires, Willian, Pedro; Diego Costa.
Arsenal XI vs. Olympiakos: Ospina; Bellerin, Koscielny, Gabriel, Gibbs; Cazorla, Coquelin; Ozlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, Sanchez; Walcott.
Olympiakos XI vs. Arsenal: Roberto; Elabdellaoui, Botia, Siovas, Salino; Cambiasso, Kasami; Pardo, Fortounis, Seba; Brown Ideye.
Lyon XI vs. Valencia: Lopes; Jallet, Bisevac, Umtiti, Morel; Gonalons, Darder, Tolisso; Valbuena, Kalulu, Lacazette.
Valencia XI vs. Lyon: Domenech; João Cancelo, Mustafi, Abdennour, Orban; Javi Fuego, Enzo Pérez, Dani Parejo; Piatti, Feghouli; Negredo.
Leverkusen XI vs. Barcelona: Leno; Tah, Papadopoulos, Wendell, Donati; Bender, Çalhanoglu, Kramer; Bellarabi, Kampl; Javier Hernández.
Barcelona XI vs. Leverkusen: Ter Stegen; Alves, Pique, Mascherano, Mathieu; Busquets, Iniesta, Rakitic; Sandro, Neymar, Suarez.
Roma XI vs. BATE: Szczesny; Florenzi, Manolas, De Rossi, Digne; Vainqueur, Nainggolan, Pjanic; Iturbe, Gervinho, Salah.
The post Match Preview/Line-Ups: Champions League Tonight – Hazard, Matic Dropped, Mikel Starts appeared first on Nigeria News today & Breaking news | Read on NAIJ.COM.
Match Preview/Line-Ups: Champions League Tonight – Hazard, Matic Dropped, Mikel Starts
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