The UEFA Champions League officially made a much-anticipated return on Tuesday , and this season's competition is not like the ones that came before it. The switch to the Swiss-system format adds more teams, more games and more days of competition to the schedule, all with the hopes of increasing the competitiveness as early as the league phase, which replaces the group stage. In terms of fixtures alone, Matchday 1 lives up to the billing with a handful of exciting games to kick off the competition.
Liverpool's trip to AC Milan saw a Christian Pulisic goal, but Liverpool easily overcame it in a 3-1 win while Kylian Mbappe made his Champions League debut in a Real Madrid shirt ad scored in a 3-1 win over Stuttgart. On Wednesday, English and Italian champions Manchester City and Inter faced off and held each other scoreless in a tense draw while PSG needed a late keeper error to get by Girona. The Champions League action continues on Thursday with Arsenal traveling to Europa League champions Atalanta and Bundesliga winners Bayer Leverkusen return to the competition with a trip to Feyenoord while Barcelona take on Monaco.
The CBS Sports team offers their expert picks and predictions. Take a look below. Don't miss any of the Champions League.
As always, you can catch all of our coverage across Paramount+ , CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports Golazo Network all season long. Here are our expert picks for this matchday: Thursday Game of the day: AS Monaco vs. Barcelona Player to watch.