Some narratives may be predictable, but that doesn’t make them any less intriguing.

Inter Milan, Napoli, Atalanta and Juventus learnt their Champions League fate on Thursday, with a host of emotional reunions, glamorous ties and chances for revenge laying ahead.

Eight years after winning the Premier League with Chelsea, Antonio Conte will cross paths with the Blues again, while Kevin De Bruyne returns to Manchester City just months after leaving for Naples and Paul Pogba faces Juventus.

And while healing the scars from the shellacking against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final will take some time, Inter have the chance to bury their Atletico Madrid demons and Atalanta will hope to exact revenge on Club Brugge, who ended their European campaign last time out.

Here, Destination Calcio breaks down the Champions League draw and what it means for the Serie A contingent.

Premier League giants in Inter Milan’s way

The draw was not particularly kind to Inter. Beaten finalists in two of the past three seasons, the Nerazzurri have their work cut out if they are to reach the knockout stage this season.

They host Liverpool and Arsenal while difficult trips to Dortmund and Madrid are also on the cards.

Liverpool won their first seven games of the revamped Champions League last term and the Premier League champions will undoubtedly be the sternest test of Cristian Chivu’s tenure so far.

Arsenal, meanwhile, return to the San Siro where they lost 1-0 last season to a Hakan Çalhanoğlu penalty, but Inter’s trip to Madrid to face Atletico will conjure less fond memories.

Diego Simeone’s men crushed the Beneamata‘s Champions League dreams two years ago, coming back from 1-0 down on the night and 2-0 down on aggregate to win their last-16 tie on penalties, with Lautaro Martinez blasting his spot-kick over the bar.

Slavia Prague are also due in Milan, while trips to Amsterdam to face Ajax and Belgium to take on Union St. Gilloise should pose less of a challenge than fixtures against Dortmund and Atletico while a degree of curiosity surrounds Kairat Almaty.

Celtic’s conquerors in the qualifying stages, the Kazakhs are the most easterly team to reach the group stage of the Champions League and Inter can count their lucky stars the draw has spared them a 3,300-mile flight to Almaty, which is closer to Tokyo than it is to Milan.

The Nerazzurri won all four of their league games at the San Siro last season and conceded just one goal across the entire first stage of the competition en route to finishing fourth, and Fabio Capello believes a similar return could be on the cards despite facing Dortmund and Atletico away from home.

“Inter have every right to consider themselves the superior side,” he wrote in La Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday. “Having reached two Champions League finals in the last three years, Lautaro and his team-mates have the necessary quality and experience to withstand intense atmospheres like those at the Westfalenstadion and the Wanda Metropolitano.”

Can Atalanta continue their European run under Ivan Juric?

European champions Paris Saint-Germain and newly-crowned world champions Chelsea are not exactly the soft landing Ivan Juric would have been hoping for ahead of the draw, and yet there are reasons for Atalanta to be optimistic.

While PSG and Chelsea may fall into the prohibitive challenges category, trips to Marseille, Frankfurt and Belgium to take on Union St. Gilloise should hold no fear for La Dea and the same applies to Club Brugge, Slavia Prague and Athletic Bilbao, who will all visit the Gewiss Stadium along with Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea side.

The fixture against Brugge will provide Atalanta with the chance to at least partially atone for their surprise elimination in the play-offs last season, when the Belgians prevailed 5-2 on aggregate.

If there are any lessons to be learnt from last season for Atalanta it is the importance of making a fast start. Under Gian Piero Gasperini, La Dea drew their first two home games against Arsenal and Celtic and lost the third to Real Madrid.

A speedier start this season is imperative if they are to reach the knockout stages without having to settle for the play-offs. More to the point, Juric needs to hit the ground running and show his team can still be an uncomfortable customer for Europe’s heavyweights, as was the case under Gasperini.

Emotional returns for Napoli

The Serie A champions are back at the top table after a year’s absence and Conte’s men have got some tasty ties coming up.

Yet in the main, Conte and his troops can be quite confident of advancing to the play-offs, or perhaps even stealing one of the top eight places.

The standout fixture for the Scudetto winners is the meeting with Manchester City, and a De Bruyne return home. The clash with Chelsea in Naples will also be one to look forward to, with memories of the last time the pair met in February 2012 and Napoli winning 3-1 in the cauldron that was then the Stadio San Paolo.

It will also see Conte face one of his former clubs. Yet those two aside, the rest of Napoli’s games are very winnable.

Eintracht Frankfurt and Benfica will represent tough challenges, but there’s no reason why Napoli should not be able to fend off both.

The game against PSV in Eindhoven also sees a return for Noa Lang, who swapped the Netherlands for Italy this summer when he joined the Partenopei for €25m.

Napoli also have a trip to Copenhagen and home games against Sporting and Qarabag which are, again, ties that Napoli will be expected to pick up points from.

Yet there are always question marks when it comes to Conte and European football. His record in Europe lacks conviction for a manager of his calibre. 

Always a coach tailor-made for the marathon of a season rather than the sprint of a cup competition, Conte needs to begin rectifying that. 

And with Napoli spending big this summer, he has no excuse for not taking the club on a deep European adventure.

History calling for The Old Lady

Juventus have a relatively simple task ahead of them in the coming months.

The standout tie is, of course, the meeting with Real Madrid, with echoes of the 1998 and 2017 Champions League finals, not to mention countless other duels between the pair in this competition down the years, ringing in the ears.

Madrid are a vastly superior team to Juve these days, so Igor Tudor may need to take a loss on the chin in the Spanish capital.

Yet that game aside, every other clash is up for grabs. Dortmund will travel to Turin, with many able to recall memories of their titanic clashes in the mid 1990s. 

Benfica, Villarreal and Sporting all represent opportunity for Juve but are exactly the kind of games they come unstuck in. 

Villarreal knocked Juve out of the Champions League in 2022, while Benfica have beaten Juve three times on the bounce over the last three seasons. 

An intriguing tie will come against Monaco in the south of France, as Paul Pogba will square off against his old side. 

Juve will also travel to the Arctic Circle to face Bodo/Glimt, who knocked Lazio out of the Europa League quarter-final earlier this year in Norway. 

On paper, Juve should have more than enough to pick up enough points to qualify, but they tend to do things the hard way in Europe.

Fixtures to watch out for

Inter’s clashes with Liverpool and Arsenal look mouthwatering prospects, as does Juve’s visit to the Santiago Bernabeu and Atalanta’s trip to Paris to face the European champions.

But it is hard to look past De Bruyne’s return to Manchester and Pogba’s reunion with Juventus.

After signing from Wolfsburg in 2015, Belgian De Bruyne made 422 appearances for City in all competitions, scoring 108 goals and registering 177 assists. He won 16 major trophies, including six Premier League titles, before leaving as a free agent in the summer to join Conte’s Serie A champions.

A true City legend, De Bruyne should be set for a triumphal return to the Etihad.

Pogba will be out with a point to prove, having felt Juve abandoned him during his doping ban. The 32-year-old joined the French side this summer and will be eager to show that the quality is still there in those injury-prone legs.

Juve against Madrid is always worth watching, given their status as European aristocrats. Napoli’s tie against Chelsea will also see Conte up against one of his many former teams and could provide a tasty side-dish to what will be a cracking encounter.

Can all four Serie A teams reach the knockout stages?

Bearing in mind the calendar will have a major say in the way things pan out in the Champions League, there should be reason for optimism to see all four teams through to the play-offs and at least two through to the round of 16 directly.

If push came to shove, those two will probably be Napoli and Juventus.

Much will depend on how Atalanta fare under Juric in the opening months of the season, but there’s no reason why Serie A should not have all four in the mix come February.

The full schedule and order of matches will be announced over the weekend