AC Milan and Newcastle open the Champions League and these are the starting lineups

This Tuesday the group stage of the Champions League will start. The first two matches will be Young Boys from Switzerland vs. RB Leipzig from Germany and AC Milan against Newcastle. The latter is one of the most interesting clashes of the day, as the two teams that last season had a great performance in their respective leagues face each other: the Italian club finished fourth in the Serie A standings, while the English team had the same position in the Premier League.

Both are now part of Group F, which seems to be the toughest group in the first phase of the Champions League. Besides them, there are Paris Saint-Germain, last French Ligue 1 champions, and Borussia Dortmund, who finished second in the Bundesliga.

For this match, coach Stefano Pioli decided that AC Milan's starting lineup will be: Mike Maignan; Davide Calabria, Malick Thiaw, Fikayo Tomori, Theo Hernandez; Rade Krunic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Tommaso Pobega, Samuel Chukwueze, Rafael Leao; Olivier Giroud. On the bench will be Antonio Mirante, Marco Sportiello, Simon Kjaer, Davide Bartesaghi, Alessandro Florenzi, Christian Pulisic, Yunus Musah, Tijjani Reijnders, Yacine Adli, Luka Jovic y Noah Okafor.

Newcastle coach Eddie Howe selected this XI: Nick Pope; Kieran Trippier, Fabian Schar, Sven Botman, Dan Burn; Sean Longstaff, Bruno Guimaraes, Sandro Tonalli; Anthony Gordon, Alexander Isak, Jacob Murphy. The substitutes will be Loris Karius, Jamaal Lascelles, Paul Dummett, Matt Targett, Valentino Livramento, Lewis Hall, Miguel Almirón, Harvey Barnes, Elliot Anderson, Lewis Miley y Callum Wilson.

What experience do they have?

This year AC Milan will participate for the 31st time in the Champions League. They are currently the second most successful club in the tournament (7), second only to Real Madrid (14). The titles they won were in 1963, 1969, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003 and 2007. Newcastle have only played 3 times in the Champions League. Their best performance was in 2002/03, when they advanced to the second round.