Champions League back with Messi, Mbappé doubt

LONDON, England (AP):

The Champions League returns tomorrow to a very different European football scene than it was before a three-month mid-season break.

In the interim, Lionel Messi won his first World Cup title. Kylian Mbappe almost won his second, then got injured. Early-season favourites for the European title fell into slumps at home.

Meanwhile, one standout team before the World Cup, Napoli, have marched on and aims for their first quarter-final place in the competition's 68-year history.

Off the field, the Super League project that tried to kill the Champions League effectively met a serious legal setback, and English title holder Manchester City face Premier League charges of financial wrongdoing that could one day stop them from entering future Champions Leagues.

It adds up to plenty of drama even before football's most prized club competition resumes with a stellar game between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.

A rematch of the 2020 final won by Bayern pairs two powers that helped stop the Super League in 2021 by refusing to join it. What it was not expected to have at Parc des Princes were the goalscorer and goalkeeper with the best records from the group stage.

Mbappe, who scored seven goals across five different Champions League games in the fall, was set to miss most of February with a thigh injury. He made a surprise return to training yesterday.

Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer's season is over because he broke a leg skiing on a vacation after Germany's quick exit from the World Cup.

The other game tomorrow pairs AC Milan and Tottenham, two of the seven round-of-16 teams that are currently outside the Champions League qualifying places in their domestic leagues. Chelsea are another and visit Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday when Club Brugge host Benfica.

Four more first-leg games are scheduled next week Tuesday and Wednesday.

MESSI QUEST

At age 35, Messi finally has a World Cup title for Argentina. Now, back to the business of winning a fifth Champions League.

When Messi won his fourth title with Barcelona in 2015, Barack Obama was president, Britain was in the European Union and Jose Mourinho won a league title at Chelsea.

Messi has not been to the final since and his first try with PSG ended in the round of 16 against Madrid. When he last faced Bayern, it was an 8-2 rout over Barcelona in the single-leg quarter-finals of the pandemic-hit 2020 edition.

Both PSG and Bayern have misfired since the World Cup. PSG were unbeaten entering this year, then lost three in the league and are out of the French Cup. Bayern still lead the Bundesliga after restarting with three straight draws.