5 teams who can do a 'Leicester City' in the Champions League this season
Oh, how we love a good underdog story. Leicester City's title triumph in 2016 will go down in history as one of the biggest miracles in the history of the game.
David had to fight just one Goliath, but Leicester had a tough task at hand in the form of the Premier League's traditional heavyweights.
There is nothing football fans wouldn't give for a similar story in the Champions League this year. Europe's top competition has been lacking in surprise packages recently, with the semifinals and finals usually contested between the usual heavyweights of European football.
However, this season witnessed a change with all of Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Chelsea finishing second in their respective groups.
With optimism and gusto, let us take a look at 5 teams who might just pull off the miracle of winning the Champions League this season despite not being European powerhouses:
#5 Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar Donetsk's best run in the Champions League came in 2010-11 when they reached the quarter-finals, only to lose out to eventual winners Barcelona. This time around they negotiated their passage through a tough Champions League group that included Manchester City and Napoli.
Their defeat of record-breaking City in the last match of the group stage will have given them immense confidence and their round of 16 opponents, AS Roma, are not a club with a huge pedigree in Europe in recent memory.
The Ukrainian team has a lot of talent in their ranks, especially some outstanding Brazilians. None is more talented than Bernard, who scored 3 goals in the Champions League group stage. With steely determination and a dogged approach, they will surely be able to get a result in most away matches.
Given the huge travel involved plus the issue of their home matches, they will be more than competitive in every match in Kiev (they cannot play in Donetsk due to the issues between Russia & Ukraine). With the right outcomes, this might just be the year for them.