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As Manchester City launched its ultimately unsuccessful attempts to sign a marquee striker during the transfer window, one player was regularly touted as a makeweight in negotiations.

As recently as January, Chelsea looked like nothing more than makeweights in the Champions League.

But it offers a glimmer, too, to those ordinarily cast as makeweights that this year, perhaps, might just be a little less of a procession.

There are makeweights, for sure: Eat at Home, Smile Away, 3 Legs.

From the moment the Champions League’s groups had been drawn in August, Group G had the look of the most finely-poised, the least predictable: no obvious favorite, no vast financial disparity, no doomed makeweights.