Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher & Micah Richards reveal their teams-to-beat in the Champions League

The CBS/Paramount+ crew shared their favorites to win the competition, how the looming World Cup will affect club football, and much more.

The 2025/26 Champions League season kicks off next week, and here in the United States, that means Kate Abdo will be back on our screens leading the most dynamic and unpredictable crew in sports broadcasting outside of Inside the NBA. (In fact, when I did a story on how the show came together over the course of just 28 days, folks involved were frank that TNT’s renowned NBA studio show was an inspiration.) Abdo and the panel of ex-pros — Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards — jump from goofy gags to tactical analysis and back again, all season long.

The four of them got on a CBS Sports/Paramount+ media call with a group of journalists this week to preview this year’s competition and their plans for how to cover it, starting with the opening matches on Tuesday, September 16.

The Football Weekend was there to take it all in as Richards nearly agreed to go to Kazakhstan for FC Kairat’s group-phase fixture with Real Madrid — until he learned how long the flight is from London. Then the three former internationals reflected on their relationships with their national team coaches, and everybody offered their strongest contenders to win the Champions League this season. (PSG, Barcelona, Liverpool — unanimously). Plus, Richards admitted he used to “look after himself” going into challenges in games when he knew he had a far bigger fixture on the horizon.

Here are a few highlights, edited for length and clarity. For some of these, multiple people answered but I chose one response to include. Each journo got a question — can you guess which one’s TFW?

On Liverpool’s ambition…

JAMIE: I do feel when I see the signings Liverpool have made, of course they will want to retain the Premier League. But I think when you make those types of signings, for that amount of money, the names Liverpool have signed — they're not signing projects, if you like. They're signing ready-made stars in Wirtz and Isak, certainly. You make those signings to win the Champions League, for me.

I'm not trying to put extra pressure on them in any way, but it almost feels like the type of signings that Real Madrid would make, or certainly make most summers. They’ll bring the biggest names they can bring in. It's not something we're really used to at Liverpool as such, but no, Liverpool have to be there or thereabouts with the players that they’ve brought in.

Do you have Man City as outsiders? Is it weird to say that?

THIERRY: Pep has done a tremendous job, we all know that. And one thing that he did, year after year after vear, that we took for granted, is that he alwavs made you forget who left the club, whatever it was. Doesn't matter. Not [just] legends of City, but legends of the Premier League. Legend, by the way, in everything in the world. You never remembered, or you were not thinking that those guys left the team from last year.

And since the beginning of this season, which is still early, and it's something that he has to deal with for the very first time, you are remembering evervbodv that was in the team that used to win before. When that happens, that starts to creep [into the] fans, and you can see there is a bit of doubt, which is normal, because it doesn't happen often to Pep to be in this type of situation. That's something that he has to deal with.

But it is the first time, and it looks like since the beginning of the season, that we're thinking about Mahrez, we're thinking about De Bruyne. Even people I saw, Man City fans, they said, “We lost Aguero.” I said, “That was five years ago. What are you talking about?” They never lost Aguero before because it wasn't in their head, because you're still winning. And now he's going to have to face something that he never faced before. But like Micah said, it’s still early.

Are Bayern Munich second-tier contenders at this point?

JAMIE: No, I think by just the name, the history of the club, and I think even in the last few years — the point I'm trying to make is, they'll always be a contender. And even in the last few years under Thomas Tuchel — I'm just watching his England team in the background here — but they always feel like they get really close. Thomas Tuchel's Bayern Munich only a couple of years ago, I think were one minute away from getting to the final, in the Bernabeu.

So I always think Bayern Munich are little bit like Liverpool. Even when they're not at their best, there's something about the Champions League where you always feel like they have a chance. They're still Bayern Munich. It carries huge weight. So, I don't think Bayern Munich would ever be classed as in a second tier of names. I know the guys just mentioned who they think are favourites, and Bayern Munich weren't mentioned, but funny enough, Real Madrid weren’t either.

There was the league phase format change last year, but a few years ago there was another change when they got rid of the away goals rule. With a couple of years to reflect, how do you feel about it now?

JAMIE: When it got changed, I was totally against it. I thought it was a great thing of European football. It was just different. That rule was not in any other game. It could take a team who were losing into winning, rather than — more often than not in a game, if you're losing, you score a goal, you’re drawing. And I just felt one goal could completely change a tie. So I was disappointed it went, I must say.

But I think there's pros and cons to it. You can look at certain games and think, “If that was an away goal, it would have killed the tie.” Or vice versa, in different situations. But I was always a fan of the away goals rule. I thought it brought something to this, to European football, that we didn't have in any other type of football.

How much did your national team coaches communicate with vou between camps, between FIFA windows, while you were with your clubs? Were they constantly checking in on you, or just kind of letting you do your thing and focus on club football?

MICAH: I think it depends how valued you are to the team, basically. So when I was first coming on, bursting on the scene, 18, I had Steve McClaren giving me my debut. He would ring me, I'm not exaggerating, very month. How’re you doing, what's it like there, anything I can do for you? But by the end, when [Fabio] Capello come in...I never had a call from him. He sent me back down to the 21s.

So it just depends on your relationship. I know football's moved on since then, but if you’re Thierry Henry, the manager’s gonna call you every month. Same with Jamie Carragher, to be fair, because although with you, Jamie, you wouldn't start every week, you were still a valued member of the squad. So I had it at the start, but by the end, I didn't have no communication whatsoever.

JAMIE: I didn't even have communication when I was with England in the squads.

MICAH: Did you not?

JAMIE: No! I don’t even think that Sven-Göran Eriksson knew who I was. Honestly. I don't think I ever had a conversation with Sven, really. Never had a conversation with Capello, really, and this is when we were in camp.

Steve McLaren, I think he was manager for maybe 12 months while I was in, and then I said I didn't want to plav anymore. I moved on from international football. So, Steve McLaren spoke to me when I said I didn't want to plav anymore. He was almost begging me to stay, because he knew what he had coming through and he wasn't too happy with it. It was like Micah Richards, Joleon Lescott, people like that. [Laughs] He was on the phone a lot more then.

But no, I had no relationship at all with any England manager, no. And to be honest, by the way, I'm not criticizing them for it. I'm not the type of person who expects people to call them. I just get on with it. I'm very low-maintenance.

THIERRY: Well, I was very old school. You speak when you're in the national team. You have time. When you arrive, it's not like now — before we had a week before we play. Now you see they have two games in a week and they go back quick to their team. You concentrate on your team, and when you're in the national team, you arrive on the Monday, you have a lot of time to talk about what's happening, how the 10 days are going to be. So it was just, stuff was done in the national team.

On the expanded World Cup format in 2026…

JAMIE: I think obviously, the larger a tournament is, probably you lose a little bit of the quality. But then I think with the World Cup, when I was a kid watching it, it felt like it was the cream of the crop. I think now it's more a festival of football, and it's trying to bring as many people in to enjoy the World Cup and participate in the World Cup. And of course, the cream will rise to the top as you get to the knockout stages.

But I think the group stage, there's going to be a lot of group stage games where vou'll feel that mavbe the quality isn't quite where you'd maybe like it to be. Or there's not as much riding on the game, because I think so many teams can qualify from the group stage anyway. So, it'll be interesting to see how it feels watching the group stage in the World Cup because of that factor.

But it is what it is. We want to try and bring as many people along the journey with the game, and this is what's happening right now.

We’ve talked about the U.S. having issues as a host country. What was it like for the French team in 1997-98 leading up to the World Cup?

THIERRY: We arrived in almost the same situation [as the U.S. currently], getting criticized a lot throughout the friendly games. A lot, actually. People wanted the coach to leave. It was actually — the press was very against him. And if you fast forward, the rest is history. We managed to win it. Some of the press had to apologize to him for the treatment that they gave him for more than two years.

So that's how it is. It's always on vou to make sure that you can convince people that you can win. Once vou do that, people came together with us, they supported us, and we managed to win it. But right from the start, yeah, it wasn't easv. But we stayed strong together and we managed to win it as you saw.

With the World Cup looming at the end of the season, and an increasingly busy calendar, do you think this could have an impact on the standard of the Champions League this season?

MICAH: In terms of the Champions League and the quality, no.

I think if we’re being honest, when you’re a footballer, you always do look a little bit down the line. This is me, I can’t speak for Jamie and I can’t speak for Thierry. But you’re always looking ahead, and if you’re an American player, and you’re the host, you will go into certain games trying to protect yourself. And I’ve done the exact same thing — if I had a game for Man City early on and I was going to play for England, I would just make sure I was looked after, whether that would be not going in for the challenge at 60-40 — you just look after yourself.

However, the Champions League is so big, I don’t think the players will be doing that. They might do it in their domestic league, if they’re playing a team in the bottom five or whatever it may be, in the relegation zone. But in terms of the Champions League, no, I think the quality will be exactly the same. Like, the Champions League — Jamie and I have been going back and forth on this for a while now, in terms of, I always say the Premier League, and Jamie says Champions League. The moments that you get in the Champions League are just ridiculous, and I think he’s just won me over. So in terms of the players, they’ll be right up for it. I don’t think we have to worry about them not giving it 100%.