5 teams who have been pleasant surprises in the 2017/18 Champions League so far

#4 Besiktas

The goals of Cenk Tosun have helped Besiktas to win their group

There are a few sides in the Champions League who remain unbeaten right now – Tottenham, Liverpool, Barcelona and PSG to name four – but the most surprising is definitely Besiktas.

The Turkish champions have basically swept through what looked like a relatively even-matched group with last season’s semi-finalists Monaco, as well as Porto and German upstarts RB Leipzig, and they’ve already confirmed their status as group winners, meaning a likely favourable draw in the round of 16.

Under boss Senol Gunes, Besiktas have built a decent side based around a group of hardy European veterans – including Pepe, Ricardo Quaresma and Alvaro Negredo – and a core of home-grown Turkish talent, and thus far it’s proving a difficult combination for any opponents to face, as they took all three points away at both Porto and Monaco, and also beat Leipzig at home too. Draws at home with Porto and Monaco weren’t so good but with 11 points it doesn’t matter now – they’re already through.

How far they can go is a massive question mark, but in Cenk Tosun they also have one of the most frequent scorers in the tournament – he’s got four goals thus far, tying him with Mohamed Salah and Raheem Sterling, and only world-class strikers like Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Kane and Neymar have scored many more. They’ve definitely been one of the surprise packages of the group stage and it should be interesting to see who they draw next.