Four dark horses who could win the Champions League
By John Harbeck
1.) PSG
This one is the most obvious, so I won’t be spending much time on it. In many ways, PSG has become a power deserving of more than the French League. They have run away with the league title in recent years and some have speculated that it negatively affects their Champions League form.
I’m sure there might be some truth to that statement, but this season under new coach Unai Emery, PSG may finally have the big game chops to advance to the late stages of the competition. Emery is, of course, the manager who took Sevilla to consecutive Europa League titles and this is the primary reason behind backing PSG to pose the largest threat.
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This campaign has gotten off to a rocky start for the Paris power as they drew at home against Arsenal in what is shaping up to be a two-team group. The November 23rd return leg to London will be critical for PSG to win as a second place group finish will likely pit them against a much more difficult opponent in the round of 16. However, advancing to the round of 16 is almost a sure thing as they already have seven points and would have to suffer a massive upset against either Ludogorets or Basel to fail to advance.
The squad, of course, lost Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Luiz over the summer, but Edinson Cavani already has 13 goals in 11 appearances this season. I would expect PSG to do some business in the winter break to further strengthen their squad after newcomers Grzegorz Krychowiak and Jese have failed to make a huge impact to this point.