The newly expanded Champions League kicked off on Thursday, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Gianluigi Buffon attending as guests of honour at the draw and overseeing some exciting matches.
Key among them was the match-up between the two most successful teams in the history of European football: Real Madrid (14 titles) and AC Milan (7), the two teams with the most European Cup/Champions League titles in history, a fitting tie for the inaugural edition of this new format of the competition.
Madrid and AC Milan have met 15 times in the competition and the records are exactly even: both teams have won six games and drawn the other three. The most recent encounters between the two teams came in the 2010/11 group stage, when Real Madrid won 2-0 at home before drawing 2-2 at San Siro.
This season's matches will be played at the Santiago Bernabeu in the Spanish capital, but the dates for the fixtures have yet to be confirmed. UEFA will wait until Friday's Europa League and Conference League draws are completed before starting to draw up the fixtures, with the final dates due to be announced on Saturday, August 31.
read more
The new format was aimed at increasing the number of matches between top teams early in the league and that is exactly what has happened, with Real Madrid facing AC Milan as well as six-time league champions Liverpool and last year's finalists Borussia Dortmund.
Carlo Ancelotti meets with former team
There are many storylines expected to play out in this classic UCL clash, but one of the most intriguing will be the return of Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti. The Italian spent a total of 13 years with AC Milan as a player and manager, playing a key role in two of the most successful periods in the club's illustrious history.
As a player, he was a key member of the famous AC Milan teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s that won two Serie A titles and two European Cups at San Siro.
Related articles
After retiring, he went into coaching and became one of the most admired and successful managers of all time. He managed Reggiana, Parma and Juventus early in his career, but it was at Milan that he truly rose to become one of the best managers in the world.
He led AC Milan to the Champions League in 2002/03 and 2006/07 before moving to Chelsea in 2009. He has coached many of the world's top clubs but found his true home at the Santiago Bernabeu, winning three more Champions League titles with Real Madrid. Throughout his career as a player and coach, he has been European champion seven times.
