Who will be crowned Europe’s next Top Club 
TOP 5 Prospects
We are only a couple of weeks ahead of the start of the 2018/2019 season of Europe’s top football (Soccer) leagues. As players are flying back from their home countries after a successful, or disappointing… Croatia cough… Croatia… international team break; fans are exited to finally receive a couple of months of uninterrupted European soccer. With the Champions League group stages starting next week, the race is on to see who will be Europe’s next Champion. However, the top club’s players will have to face what is commonly called the “FIFA virus”, which is the fatigue that players suffer after a couple of weeks playing with their national teams. Europe’s elite especially suffer through this since they employ the best players in the world. Long hours of travel, and in many cases injuries can affect clubs in their pursuit to start of the new season well. Although, they will each have at least on league game, before facing the top tier in the Champions League. The question is, who looks the best at this point of the season to take the gold?Will it be thirteen time raining Champion Real Madrid? (God I hope not). Will it be star packed Barcelona? or one of the oil giants PSG and Manchester City? Or Can Italian juggernaut Juventus finally win a final with their new star man Cristiano Ronaldo… NOUUUU!!!? …Probably not.
Here is how the top 5 prospects are looking ahead of the start of Champions league football, who will be crowned king of Madrid?
REAL MADRID
Los Merengues head into a new season after experiencing some very sad (OH YEAAHHH!!!) events during the summer. Not only was the great white giant not able to buy a world class quality player during the summer transfer window, which is customary for “Los Blancos”, but they also received two very big blows to their roster. First, the big man himself, the so called “The Best”, the legendary, the great, the mechanical, unstoppable, remarkable, flippers best friend… Cristiano Ronaldo!!! Has left the big house, and with not so much as a goodbye kiss from president Florentino. All fun aside, Ronaldo was Madrid’s primary superstar for almost 10 seasons at “El Bernabeu” stadium, and a big loss for Real. Add the fact that their GM for the last three years Zinedine Zidane also left the club, and you are stuck with a lot of problems to fix and no new solutions. However, Madrid fans will be far from unhappy after being crowned Europe’s best in four of their last five seasons, including three back to back to back Champions league titles. New Spanish born GM Julen Lopetegui, who had a successful yet dramatic experience with the Spanish national team, will hope to pick up things where they where left off. You could expect that loosing Cristiano would be severely detrimental to Madrid’s game, but in reality it opens up a world of possibilities. Madrid has staked up on a lot of young talent in the last few years, and if Lopetegui can bring out the best from young superstars like Marco Asensio, Isco, Lucas Vasquez, etc. While hoping that already experienced players, like resent world cup “Balon D’Ore” Luka Modric, captain Sergio Ramos, Toni Kross, Marcelo, can keep their fitness and game level; there is no reason to believe that Real will be less of contender to win their fourth straight title. Their real challenge is in the offensive side of the ball, they will have to depend on resent signings like Mariano, and Vinicius Jr, and super stars Bale and Benzema to try to fill the fifty goal a year whole that Cristiano left behind.
FC BARCELONA
There are very few arguments against saying that Barca is favorite to take it all this season. Not only do they have the GOAT, which in my opinion is the only argument you need, they also have worked to build the most star studded roster in Europe. After looking their best last season under manager Ernesto Valverde, if not for the slip up against Roma, they would have probably been favorites to take last years Champions league title home. However, their one weakness was that they relied to much on their starting players, and the players coming of the bench and reserves were not filling in the gaps during the regular season. This resulted in fatigue in the late, and decisive period of the season. They still won both an almost undefeated League title, and the Spanish Cup. Happy but unsatisfied with their results from last season, “Los Blaugranas” made sure to bring in new star signings Arturo Vidal, Arthur, Lenglet, and Malcolm to renew every line on the field. Not only are the new signings bringing fans hopes up, but the entire team is looking very strong, the likes of experienced players like Messi, Suarez, Pique, Jordi Alba, Rakitic, Sergio Busquets will be familiar dependable stars for “Los Cules”. Promising new and young players like Philip Coutinho, Dembele, and Nelson Semedo are now more adapted to Barcelona’s style of play and will surely be a force to be reckoned with this upcoming season. FC Barcelona are looking to be the favorites to win it all, unless of course they mess it up again like last season… Hopefully not, please.
ArepaFootball 