The Return of the UEFA Champions League

September 17 is the date. And football fanatics need not wait any longer—it’s almost here. As of this writing, it’s just a matter of hours before the UEFA Champions League will once again grace us with its breathtaking, adrenaline-charged beauty.

Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and the rest of Europe’s elite will duke it out for the 2014 championship cup. And as you know, there are no guaranteed victors in this tournament. The only guarantee this year, just like any other, is that we’d get to see some of the finest football competition in the entire globe.

Everyone has his/her own fearless forecast as to who will win take home coveted title this season. But as you know, there are 32 tremendous teams that’ll battle it out, thus this can be quite unpredictable. Still, our money is on English football (visit here if you really want to put your money where your mouth is; it should be fun).  After all, you can’t go wrong with Chelsea, Manchester United, and Arsenal. These clubs compose England’s top tier, and they have more than a hundred UEFA Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, and FA Community Shield titles among them. Plus, each of these squads has been either a champion or a runner-up in the UEFA Champions League in the past decade. With those accolades, the odds are on the side of these English teams. Let’s take a brief look at the three below.

Out of the three English clubs, Chelsea was the last one to revel in championship glory. The London-based squad beat the current defending titleholder, Bayern Munich, in 2012 to claim its very first UEFA Champions League Cup. Naturally, Chelsea is bent on getting back on top. The Pensioners have a ton of momentum going into the 2013-2014 season, as they recently set a record by being the first English team to win all three main UEFA club competitions. Only three other franchises were able to achieve this incredible feat in the past. Chelsea will return to action against Basel in the Group E preliminaries. Though the team’s opposition would of course put up a gutsy fight, busting out of this group shouldn’t prove to be tough for the boys in blue.

Manchester United isn’t doing too shabby either. The Red Devils clinched their 20^th Premier League title just recently, after all. With David Moyes now at the helm, Manchester United has its sights set on adding yet another UEFA Champions League title to the three that’s already in its trophy shelf. The club has fell short in recent years, as it had to settle for second place in the last two times that it was able to reach the UEFA Champions League Final. The team doesn’t have it easy in Group A; and it’ll start off its road towards the championship by facing a rather feisty Leverkusen squad.

And of course, there’s Arsenal. While the Gunners have yet to attain the ultimate triumph in the UEFA Champions League, they’ve still been a consistently excellent squad. Arsenal has come real close, though, as the club was a runner-up in 2006. 2014 may finally be Arsenal’s year. But before it gets to that point, the squad has to contend with the hellish Group F that consists of Borussia Dortmund, Marseille, and Napoli. Expect Arsenal to step up its game due to the steep challenge—you can never count this team out, regardless of the opposition. First up on the schedule for Arsenal would be Marseille. The injured Olivier Giroud will suit up for the Gunners, which should be a huge boost for them in the upcoming crucial contest.

It should be exciting to watch how the tournament will unfold in the coming weeks and months for these English clubs. All three teams are primed, they’re raring to go. And come September 17 (the 18^th for some teams), they plan on unleashing hell on their opposition.