Pretenders and Contenders: Predicting the Champions League Group Stage

Group D: FC Porto (Portugal), Galatasaray SK (Turkey), Lokomotiv Moscow (Russia), Schalke 04 (Germany)

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FC Porto's Yacine Brahimi

Prediction:

1. FC Porto
2. Schalke 04
3. Lokomotiv Moscow
4. Galatasaray SK

This is probably the most balanced group in the whole competition. No superclubs, no minnows, and just a quartet of solid football teams. Based on first team quality alone, Porto looks a solid choice to finish on top. Yacine Brahimi, Hector Herrera and Vincent Aboubakar are among the best players in the group.

After some seasons of domestic struggle where they haven't won the league since 2012/13, last year's title-winning campaign will motivate even further, although there is plenty of wiggle room in this lot and nothing is really certain.

Normally, Schalke would have been the favorites here. Perennial European competition participants, a dismal 2016/17 season saw them finish 10th in the Bundesliga, yet they came back strong and were runners-up last year. However, the major losses of Leon Goretzka, Max Meyer and Thilo Kehrer with the arrival of Sebastian Rudy (Bayern Munich, 16.50 million euros) as their only notable addition will severely hamper them in the near future.

Lokomotiv Moscow, bolstered by their first Russian Premier League win since 2004 and the arrivals of Russia star Fedor Smolov (Krasnodar, 9 million euros), Benedikt Howedes (Schalke, 5 million euros) and Grzegorz Krychowiak (PSG, on loan) could give them a decent chance at making it into the next round.

Meanwhile, Turkish Super Lig title holders Galatasaray, who are no strangers to Europe's premier competition, are on paper the weakest team. They no longer have the marquee players like Didier Drogba and Wesley Sneijder that made them dark horses, but the equal nature of this crop of teams might still allow them to cause some kind of a stir.