PRE-MATCH BRIEFING: CHELSEA V PORTO

For the sixth consecutive season, Chelsea begin on the Champions League trail. Club historian Rick Glanvill and club statistician Paul Dutton put the team under starter's orders.

TALKING POINTS
The eight-month march to Madrid for the Champions League final begins with familiar visitors. Portugal's most successful team have lost on both their previous trips to the Bridge and a repeat, achieved without the in-form Didier Drogba, would maintain the feelgood factor generated by 100 per cent success in the Barclays Premier League.

If Chelsea manage to win the trophy after five semi-final and one final appearance, Carlo Ancelotti would become only the second manager to scoop the silverware twice with different teams. 

KEY STAT Porto have never kept a clean sheet on English soil in European competition.

Porto are third after four games in Portugal's Liga Sagres, which they have dominated the past four years. They have won both their home matches at the fortress Estadio do Dragao with ease.

Away, as is generally the problem with Porto in Europe, is a different matter. A 3-1 win at feeble Naval followed a listless 1-1 performance against tiny Paços de Ferreira. A curious facet is that both concessions were goals gifted to the opposition by Porto players.

The return of three wins and one draw so far will satisfy the directors at Porto, who rang the changes with seven out and eight in this summer. Manager Jesualdo Ferreira, 63, shipped out three important players for big money: left-back Aly Cissokho (€15m) and playmaker Lucho Gonzalez (€18m) and powerful striker Lisandro Lopez (€24m).

One of his less-heralded replacements has immediately made his mark, however. Columbia international striker Radamel Falcao (pictured below) has scored four goals in four games. Short, prolific wherever he has played (which means the Americas prior to his summer transfer to Portugal), the 23-year-old has stepped into Lopez's big boots with aplomb.

Porto will look to him for inspiration to overturn a dreadful winless record in the country. In 13 visits to England stretching back 35 years, Porto have lost 11 and drawn two. Chelsea have won five of our seven opening night fixtures in this competition. Last season's victims were Bordeaux, slaughtered 4-0.

A less welcome memory of last season's competition is the dreadful refereeing of the semi-final against Barcelona by Tom Henning Ovrebo and his linesmen. A legacy of Chelsea's frustration that evening is that Didier Drogba and José Bosingwa, both currently in fine form, are ruled out of this match. Despite his extraordinary performance that night, Ovrebo is booked to handle the group stage game between Juventus and Bordeaux this week.

Ricardo Carvalho, Paulo Ferreira, Hilario, Deco and José Bosingwa will all be facing their former club. Porto are the only Portuguese opposition Chelsea have ever faced and in the two home and away meetings, the spoils have mostly gone to the hosts.

Chelsea are currently equal second seeds in the Champions League. The 32 clubs in this season's competition with their coefficients (based on the last five seasons in Europe) are listed below:

Barcelona 121.853
Chelsea 118.899
Liverpool 118.899
Man Utd 111.899
AC Milan 110.582
Arsenal 106.899
Sevilla 100.853
Bayern Munich 98.339
Lyon 91.033
Inter 87.582
Real Madrid 78.853
CSKA Moscow 71.525
Porto 68.292
AZ Alkmaar 64.826
Juventus 63.582
Rangers 56.575
Olympiacos 52.633
Marseille 48.033
Dynamo Kiev 46.370
Stuttgart 45.339
Fiorentina 42.582
Atlético Madrid 41.853
Bordeaux 40.033
Besiktas 32.445
Wolfsburg 21.339
Standard Liege 21.065
Maccabi Haifa 17.050
FC Zurich 14.050
Rubin Kazan 9.525
Unirea Urziceni 8.781
APOEL 4.016
Debreceni 1.633

This season's Champions League features 18 domestic league champions (including Porto), six runners-up, five third-placed finishers and three fourth placed teams.

All four teams in Group D have blue somewhere in their first choice strip. The pitting of Atlético into the same fray as Chelsea means that for the third successive season the Blues have the chance to sample the host city, in this case Madrid, ahead of the final.

Atlético's clash with APOEL, champions of Cyprus, will give us some indication of the strength of the unknown quantity from Nicosia.

Cypriot football appeared to be on the rise after Anorthosis Famagusta became the first team from their island to make the group stage of this competition a year ago. However, both sides are currently mid-table in the Marfin Laiki League after hesitant starts to the season.

The Spaniards are in an even lowlier position, having similarly lost and drawn their opening two games. They currently languish in one of the Primera's relegation positions.

Other Group D fixture
Tue 7.45pm Atlético Madrid v APOEL

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Seat-only tickets in hospitality areas are available for the game from £65. Call 0871 984 1955.