The Champions League returns this week with some exciting matchups

This week sees the return of football's most prestigious club competition, the UEFA Champions League, with many of Europe's elite sides ready to battle it out to reach the final at Wembley Stadium next June.

Last season's defending champions and first-time winners of the competition, Manchester City, are among the firm favourites again to win this season's prize. Pep Guardiola's team will kick off its defence of the Champions League when the side hosts Serbian side Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) on Tuesday night at the Etihad Stadium.

New signings Jeremy Doku, Mateo Kovacic, Josko Gvardiol and Matheus Nunes should aid Guardiola's chances of repeating Manchester City's success in the Champions League from last season.

Also, in Group G with Manchester City are the German side RB Leipzig and the Swiss side Young Boys.

Intriguing matches set to take place on the first match-day of the group stages include Newcastle United's visit to AC Milan on Tuesday evening. This marks Newcastle's return to the Champions League for the first time in two decades, so Eddie Howe's men will be looking to make a real impact in the competition and make a good account of themselves for the travelling supporters.

The Magpies will face other top sides in the group stage with matches to come against Paris Saint Germain and Borussia Dortmund, who will face each other on the first matchday in the other Group F game.

Paris Saint Germain were often regarded as one of the favourites in previous Champions League campaigns due to the amount of money the Qatari-owned club spent. However, the French side never could quite get over the line in the competition. Even with superstars such as Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani and others, failure always occurred.

Now the French side are heading in a new direction with Messi and Neymar out the door and there is a larger focus on servicing Mbappe and making him the centre point of the team. Also, Luis Enrique's side invested in younger talent in the summer with additions such as Randal Kolo Muani, Goncalo Ramos, Kang-in Lee, Bradley Barcola and Manuel Ugarte.

To complement the new younger players, experience has also been added to the Parisian side with the additions of Ousmane Dembele, Lucas Hernandez, Marco Asensio and Milan Skriniar.

Tuesday night will also see Spanish giants Barcelona take on Belgian side Antwerp at home, with Xavi's side looking to advance from the group stage after failing to do so in the past two campaigns.

On the other hand, 14-time winners of the Champions League, Real Madrid, will kick off their campaign on Wednesday against German side Union Berlin and will have hopes of lifting club football's biggest prize once again. However, the club lost its star striker Karim Benzema in the summer to Saudi-Arabian side, Al-Ittihad, so Carlo Ancelotti's side may have to rely on its other stars such as Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Rodrygo to find success in Europe this season.

Wednesday's fixtures will also see Arsenal return to the Champions League for the first time since the 2016/17 campaign, as the North London will kick off the group stage with a home fixture against Dutch side, PSV Eindhoven. Mikel Arteta's side will fancy its chances of getting out of the group stage as the club avoided matchups against any of the genuine contenders in the competition.

Arsenal's trickiest opponent is set to be Sevilla, the current Europa League holders, who have won Europe's second-tier competition a record seven times and therefore have a very respectable pedigree in Europe. The other team in Arsenal's group is French side RC Lens.

Arguably the biggest and most anticipated Champions League fixture of the first matchday is Bayern Munich's home tie against Manchester United at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday. The German champions are viewed as one of the strong favourites for the tournament after capturing England striker Harry Kane in the summer and also strengthening defensively with the addition of Korean centre back, Kim Min-jae.

Manchester United are currently under severe pressure to get a positive result as the club's start to the Premier League season has been poor, losing three out of the opening five games. A trip to Munich is as tough a challenge as Manchester United could get right now whilst the ongoing issues on and off the pitch persist at the club.

The Red Devils are also joined in Group A by Turkish side, Galatasaray and Danish side, FC Copenhagen.

Last year's finalists Inter Milan will also be in action on Wednesday, with a visit to Spain to take on Real Sociedad. The Italian side are coming off the back of a 5-1 thrashing over local rivals AC Milan this past weekend, so the three-time winners of the Champions League will be hoping to sustain their momentum.