Why PSG's tough Champions League draw might not be as bad as feared?

On paper, last Thursday's Champions League draw could scarcely have looked any harder for Luis Enrique's side. Barcelona and Bayern Munich are extremely tough games, while away games in Leverkusen and Bilbao could represent potential banana skins. Even the supposed easier games, at home to Newcastle, Atalanta and Tottenham are far from guaranteed victories. Luis Enrique himself spoke in frank terms, as is his habit, after the draw was made, to complain about the difficult fixtures his team will have to face. But here's why the draw might not be as bad as some could fear for the Champions of Europe.

Why PSG shouldn't worry over their Champions League tough draw?

There's no avoiding that this is a tough draw. There are no easy games in the Champions League, but for PSG this season, there are not really even any easier ones. On paper, you could argue that either Sporting Lisbon or Leverkusen (given the current turmoil at the latter club) are the least daunting match-ups that they will undergo in the Group stage, but even those games are far from being walk-overs. Indeed, there is probably a sense around the club that it's going to be hard for the tournament holders to serenely assure their qualification to the latter stages. Indeed, of all top seeded teams in the tournament, PSG's fixtures, on paper, seem comfortably the trickiest.

However, it's important to remember that this was also the case in the group stages of last season's competition. Then too, they would have come away from the Group Stage draw feeling hard done by - facing Bayern Munich, Atlético Madrid and Arsenal, all of whom they lost to, before an eventual comeback victory in their penultimate group game against Manchester City arguably became the turning point in their whole season. Far from an easy draw, but playing that caliber of team perhaps prepared the team for their later knockout stage exploits, in which they seem to have learned from their wasteful and porous early performances.

Furthermore, it's important to note that this PSG side do still have the luxury of being able to rotate in their domestic matches. It's well documented that they did so heavily in the league last season, specifically at the back end of the campaign, once their league title was assured, a period in which they could entirely focus on the Champions League and make wholesale changes to the whole XI. This is a possibility that other squads in the Champions League, including Barcelona and both of the Premier League clubs that PSG will face in the group stages, simply do not have. Enrique will have the option to rest players before the Barcelona game in what looks like a fairly easy fixture at home to AJ Auxerre, while the Catalan club have a harder schedule with less possibilities for squad rotation.

It's also fair to say that this isn't the PSG of even two years ago, whose non-existent pressing structure saw them exposed frequently in European games. In the last six months, they have dispatched and outplayed each of the three best teams in the Premier League, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and of course Inter Milan, who they thrashed 5-0 in the final of last year's edition. The defeat to Chelsea in the final of the Club World Cup is the only blot on an otherwise impeccable copy book, and more impressively still, they have achieved these results with an assertive, front footed and ball dominant style of play, that very few teams have been able to counteract at all.

In conclusion, while Enrique's unhappiness at the draw is understandable, it's important to remember that none of the teams that PSG will play will be happy about having to do so - and that for PSG to claim one or two more big scalps during the group stages of this year's tournament might lay down a marker of intent for them to retain their Champions League crown.

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