ISTANBUL
After the tasting of the championship, the new football season will really get underway today at 6pm Italian time (live TV on Sky and Mediaset) with the draw of the Champions League 2021-’22 involving Inter, Milan, Atalanta and Juventus. The four teams are called to keep the prestige of the tricolor ball that the national team has been able to bring to the top of Europe and the blue coach, Roberto Mancini, and one of the columns of his team, Jorginho, will be in the spotlight during the ceremony in Istanbul as contenders for the title of Uefa coach and player of the year respectively.
The 67th edition of the tournament, destined to change profoundly in the near future, will still see 32 teams in contention, which will begin the journey on 14-15 September with the aim of reaching the final scheduled for 28 May in St. Petersburg. In the draw, the Italians are equally distributed in the four bands: only Inter have the advantage of being seeded – by right as the winner of Serie A -, while Juve are in the second band, Atalanta in the third and Milan. , who has been missing from “his” cup for seven years, is in the fourth. A high risk position for the Rossoneri, who could end up directly in an iron group from the urn. The hope for Stefano Pioli is to draw, among the first-tier teams, the relatively soft ones, namely Lille, Sporting Lisbon or Villarreal, promoted thanks to the victory in the Europa League and therefore the fifth Spanish team of the tournament.
On the contrary, the nightmare scenario would foresee hypotheses like Manchester City, PSG and Ajax, three opponents of weight and name from their respective bands. In any case, the greatest dangers are in the first ballot box, where in addition to Guardiola’s team and Inter – which cannot be drawn by the other Italians – there are also Chelsea champions, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich.
There are no fewer pitfalls, however, in the second tier, which alongside Juventus includes real battleships: Barcelona, Liverpool, Manchester United, Psg and Real Madrid, as well as Sevilla and Borussia Dortmund. A situation that could give the Bianconeri an advantage over Inter, even if with three Spanish and two English teams the aforementioned derby veto could end up in their group one of City, Chelsea or Atletico.
The tension for the draw will be accompanied by that for the election of the best coach and best player of the year, with Mancini having as competitors Per Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel, while the Chelsea and National team midfielder will face Kevin De Bruyne and with club mate ‘Ngolo Kantè. In the ceremony, the best players, role by role, of the last Champions will also be announced, and the only Italian Jorginho still appears in the list of candidates. –