The 2025/26 Champions League campaign will officially begin in a matter of weeks with the league phase, as the summer 2025 transfer window has been wrapped up and sealed with a bow.
Most of the big players in the Champions League, like Liverpool and Real Madrid, were also major buyers on the transfer market, as superstars like Alexander Isak and Trent Alexander-Arnold moved around this summer window.
The Premier League’s Big Six, in particular, were big spenders, proving the notion that the Super League is really just the biggest clubs in the Premier League isn’t just a prognostication for the future; it’s already rapidly happening in front of us.
But as teams head into the 2025/26 season with boatloads of optimism, there is reason for trepidation among some of European football’s elite clubs. Here are five Champions League powers who could be on a collision course for implosion if a few dominoes fall.
Bayern Munich
Every year, it seems like Bayern Munich executive Max Eberl is involved in some sort of silly drama, and after backstabbing Borussia Monchengladbach to join RB Leipzig – and then quickly jumping ship to another “Evil Empire” Bundesliga team in Bayern – the man is already thinking of leaving again.
The latest speculation around Eberl’s future involves Eberl basically throwing a tantrum and quitting since Bayern didn’t sign Florian Wirtz, which is really funny since Die Roten did still invest heavily in the squad for Eberl.
No, they didn’t spend upwards of 120 million euros on Wirtz when they already had Jamal Musiala in the attacking midfield and signed Tom Bischof to a squad already loaded with talented prospects.
It’s hilarious the kinds of nonsense executives at Bayern get themselves into, and you have to wonder why anyone would want to coach this perennial circus team run by some of the most egotistical and overrated executives that the German footballing scene has ever seen.
Eberl should be more worried about his own job security and perception around the Bundesliga, because he’s only made Bayern worse upon his arrival. And it’s stories like this before the season starts that don’t bode well for a club.
FC Hollywood seem to be at it again, and although they did upgrade their team vastly attacking-wise with Luis Diaz on the left wing and Nicolas Jackson as a backup striker, Bayern literally didn’t get better in their most important positions of need in midfield and defense. And Musiala’s loss is a big one.
I don’t think anyone seriously has Bayern among their Champions League favorites going into the season, and that alone is tantamount to failure for Bayern, who have fallen so far from their standards over the past three to four years that you wonder if they aren’t already on a prolonged tailspin after unnecessarily firing Julian Nagelsmann just to end up with Burnley’s old coach in big 2025.
Atletico Madrid
Atletico Madrid’s transfer strategy seems to be paying an extra 10 million euros above market value for a sea of mediocre players like Johnny Cardoso and Matteo Ruggeri who don’t materially help the team’s starting lineup or chances of competing in La Liga.
It’s hard to take Atleti seriously as contenders in Spanish football when they play so negative against Real Madrid and can’t help but blow leads left and right against Barcelona.
They have not been a real threat in the Champions League in pretty much a decade, as their worst tendencies of horrible red cards and neglectful defending in the final 10 minutes of matches have doomed them into an overpaid bunch of mid-table footballers when the games actually matter,
Diego Simeone has done wonderfully over the years at Atletico Madrid, but there’s a saying in football that coaches who spend too long at a club end up treading water because nobody listens to them anymore and their ideas have gone stale.
When you watch Antoine Griezmann labor through dribbles these days and see how unstructured Atleti look when Barcelona are facing them up on the counter, you have to wonder, in the back of your mind, if the other shoe will finally drop this season.
Inter Milan
Inter Milan have been Champions League Finalists in two of the last three seasons, but they always seem to screw things up when they are at their best, judging by the fact that they failed to win the league or Champions League in either of those seasons.
Last year’s close to the 2024/25 campaign was a real low point for the Nerazzurri. They got cooked by rivals AC Milan in the Coppa Italia semifinals, got blown out 5-0 in front of the whole world in the Champions League Final, and then worst of all completely blew Serie A to former manager Antonio Conte’s Napoli despite having a way more valuable squad and a big lead in the table.
Worst of all, Inter lost the biggest reason for their success this summer, somehow losing star manager Simone Inzaghi to the Saudi Pro League, which is a shameful result for a front office. How do you lose your coach after reaching a Champions League Final to a club of finished players competing in a league that nobody pays attention to and isn’t even in the Champions League?
Cristian Chivu is a complete gamble, and while the former Inter midfielder should be given a chance, it’s wild to see a club as big as Inter hiring someone with no experience, and you can ask Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Juventus how it goes when you hire a youth manager with no long-term experience coaching (even as an assistant like Zinedine Zidane) a senior side. It usually doesn’t end well.
Inter have an aging squad, especially in the midfield, and they looked about as disorganized as you’d expect under Chivu in their losing effort against Udinese. The Nerazzurri are still a good team, but they are no longer a great one.
Manchester City
Technically, Manchester City already had their implosion last season, and they did have a productive summer transfer window with the signings of new goalkeepers Gianluigi Donnarumma and James Trafford to upgrade on Ederson, as well as new midfielder Tijjani Rejinders and left back Rayan Ait-Nouri. And when Rayan Cherki returns from his injury, Man City could have one of the Premier League’s biggest game-changers.
Speaking of injury returns, Rodri is back to full strength for Manchester City, and as much as the “like a new signing” gets overused by the usual suspects in the Spanish newspapers whenever any decently big name comes back from an injury (even if they were only gone for two weeks), Rodri’s return is a way bigger deal than even Donnarumma or Rejinders coming in.
I mean, the guy won the Ballon d’Or over Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior when he lost to that Real Madrid team in the Champions League knockout stages. And in hindsight, nobody besides the most diehard Madridistas disputes that honor because of how dreadful Man City were without him last season.
The thing is, Manchester City might end up in the same position again this season outside the top three in the Premier League and with an early exit in the Champions League, because all of their competitors had better transfer windows than they did.
Reijnders, Donnarumma, and Cherki are great but are they really better than Dean Huijsen, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Franco Mastantuono or Estevao Willian, Jamie-Bynoe Gittens, and Joao Pedro? They certainly aren’t bigger upgrades than the sweeping ones top Premier League title contenders Arsenal and Liverpool made.
Nor were Manchester City anywhere near the level of a Barcelona, PSG, or Liverpool last season. Pep Guardiola’s side has been blasted by Tottenham and Brighton to start the 2025/26 Premier League season, and if you think 2024/25 is the worst it can get, then you haven’t seen how bad it can get for Pep when he loses a team. Ask Bayern Munich fans.
Arsenal
I don’t think Arsenal will implode this season, per se, but I do think they are the best team in European football who are actually at risk of a catastrophe this season, simply because of how volatile their situation is.
Everything about them is ripe for explosion. They have a fanbase that either overrates half of their players or is fed up with the narrative that Mikel Arteta is some sort of flawless savior and have now gone in the complete opposite direction, buying into rival fanbases’ perception that he is a Draconian goof.
But that’s what happens when you have a group of people who became enamored with their team’s sudden title contention, sung the praises of their newfound heroes a little too effusively in order to keep up with social media wars against Manchester City and Liverpool fans, and then suddenly got disillusioned when they realized they weren’t winning anything anyway.
Arsenal spent a lot of money this past summer transfer window, finally signing a No. 9 in Viktor Gyokeres while adding one of the best No. 6’s in the world in Martin Zubimendi.
But they spent a lot of money on players who don’t have a proven track record of success in the Champions League knockouts, which is the level of competition Arsenal are hoping to rise to after realizing that there is still a great deal of distance between themselves and true contenders like Liverpool and PSG.
Most of Arsenal’s transfer business was redundant this summer. It’s hard to see how Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze offer anything substantially different to the team tactically or are good uses of their transfer funds.
Arsenal play very negative against the biggest teams in their league, almost to the point of cowardice, with Arteta drawing more collective groans and eyerolls across the Premier League landscape after his team produced another unsightly 0 in the goals column in what was really a must-win match against reigning Premier League champions Liverpool.
Arteta is not the most likable of characters, and that only avoids becoming grating when you are winning or overachieving. Arsenal, if anything, run the risk of underachieving if the Spanish manager can’t turn the latest injection of spending into real, visible silverware. The cannon’s fuse is merely waiting to be lit at this point.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2011. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has contributed to sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. Joe’s work has appeared in ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Illustrated. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling, respectively.