Champions League Gameday 1: Thoughts and Notes

What did we learn from the opening salvo’s in the champions league?

It is far more valuable to be a team from 'Pot 1' of the draw than a league champion. Teams from Pot 1 won 7 and drew 1 (Barcelona's draw with Inter in Milan, no shame there) of their opening fixtures while 1st place teams from last season won only 4, drew 5 and lost 9. Of course, now with the final qualifying stages split into a 'champions' and 'non-champions' path, more league winners should qualify ahead of placed teams from Europe's stronger nations. Teams from Pot 4 won 1, drew 1 and lost 6 with the only victory coming from German league champions, Wolfsburg.

Including his hat-trick Tuesday night, Grafite now has 41 goals in 54 games for Wolfsburg.

Over the last two seasons, teams that went on to qualify for the knockout stages won 16, drew 7 and lost 8 of their opening fixtures with all 16 teams from Pot 1 getting through. 11 teams from Pot 2, 3 teams from Pot 3 and 2 teams from Pot 4 have also made it through. The likely gatecrashers? The afforementioned Wolfsburg have a chance along with Standard Liege from Pot 4 while Stuttgart, Atletico Madrid, Bordeaux, Marseille and Olympiacos will fancy their chances out of Pot 3.

Maccabi Haifa, Debreceni and APOEL Nicosia have played 6 games to get this far and the Cypriots were rewarded with a point in Madrid. Ranked 190th in the UEFA Rankings, here are a bunch of teams ranked higher than APOEL; Cherno More Varna (179th), Aberdeen (134th), NEC Nijmegen (110th) and…Millwall (107th). In fact Millwall rank above 4 teams in the group stages.

Of the 54 European Cup Finals in history, 23 of them have involved Milan or Real Madrid, both featuring in Group C

Of the 17 Champions League Finals, 9 of them have involved Milan or Real Madrid.

Milan and Real Madrid have never met in a European Cup Final.

10 of the top 11 All-time Champions League scorers are still active, 9 are participating in this years competition and 2 (Pippo Inzaghi of Milan and Raul and Real Madrid) were on target this week.

Arsenal have kept 1 clean sheet in all competitions this season and have conceded 11 goals in 7 games. The pairing of Gallas and Vermaelen introduced themselves in imperious form but the defensive spine has shortcomings.

Cristiano Ronaldo had 10 shots (that’s more than 13 entire teams had), including successful 2 strikes from free-kicks, and now has 20 shots in less than 2 ½ games.

Would you rather have Zlatan Ibrahamovic or Samuel Etoo right now? Me too.

18 of 37 goals in midweek were scored after 70 minutes.

Luis Fabiano should be in the conversation with the likes of Torres, Drogba, Etoo and Ibrahimovic as the best striker in the competition.

Mathieu Flamini, born and bred in Marseille, should be suspended for his atrocious two-footed challenge on Mbia. If you haven’t seen it, it was very, very ugly.

Brazil have the best two right backs in the world currently; It's a loss that Maicon and Daniel Alves probably can't play in the same team.

And finally...the Besiktas fan's performance made a sluggish, routine game all that much more enjoyable. United were fortunate that the Turk's could not match the organisation and flair of their supporters.