The Fenerbahçe Yellow Canaries take on Portuguese powerhouse Porto away in their UEFA Champions League Group G opening game this evening.

In fact, this match couldn't have come at a worse time for the downcast Canaries, who are enduring their worst start to the domestic league season after winning just one and losing two in their three outings so far.

Fenerbahçe kicked off the 2008-09 season on a losing note, going down 1-0 at Antep, but rebounded in week two to beat a nine-man İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor 2-0 at home. However, the Canaries on Saturday returned to their losing ways, bowing 2-1 to mediocre Hacettepe in Ankara and thereby incurring the wrath of the doomsayers in local sports media.

Fenerbahçe's new Spanish coach, Luis Aragones, attacked on all sides after a string of bad home results, has had little or no time to right the wrongs before his team's toughie against Porto today. The Canaries had said they wanted to go beyond last season's Champions League performance when they advanced to quarterfinals of the competition. And so the İstanbul club forked out precious hard-earned cash to purchase Aragones from the Spanish national team, Spanish goal king Daniel Guiza from Mallorca, Turkey international leftie Emre Belözoğlu from Newcastle United and, more recently, defensive midfielder Juan Pablo Josica from Villarreal.

Everyone associated with the Canaries, from top to bottom, was talking about "the dream team." But barely three weeks into the new Turkcell Super League season the "dream team" has not lived up to expectations.

Champions League, not Super League

The Canaries, who landed in Portugal on Tuesday, are playing in the group stage for the fourth time in five seasons. And so they have acquired enough experience to know that domestic form does not determine the outcomes in the Champions League. This is Europe's most lucrative and prestigious club soccer competition, where motivation is sky high because every victory means big bucks in prize money.

English side Liverpool is a good example to prove that the domestic league and the Champions League are two different things altogether. The Reds, who have not won the Premiership in 19 years (since 1990), clinched the Champions League in 2004-05 in İstanbul and were the losing finalists in Athens in 2006-07.

Furthermore, the record books show that Porto has not won an opening Champions League match in seven years. The last time Porto accomplished this feat was a 2-1 away victory over Norway's Rosenborg in 2001. On the side of the medallion, though, Porto has lost just one of its last 20 home matches in the competition, winning 10 of them. This is a statistic that may make worrying reading for the Canaries, who have lost six and drawn two of their last eight UEFA Champions League away matches.

Test for Aragones

Two-time European champion Porto represents a testing first assignment for Aragones, who has never faced Portuguese opposition in more than four decades of continental competition, either as player or as a coach.

The septuagenarian Aragones is the oldest coach in this season's UEFA Champions League and is leading a team in the competition for the first time in 30 years. Back in 1977-78, he took Club Atletico de Madrid to the quarterfinals before they succumbed 4-3 on aggregate to Club Brugge.

The Fenerbahçe coach was seconds away from winning the European Champion Clubs' Cup for Atletico in the 1974 final against FC Bayern Munich. The Spanish club was leading through Aragones's extra-time strike when a last-gasp equalizer by Georg Schwarzenbeck forced a 1-1 draw and Bayern won the replay 4-0.

Fenerbahçe left-back Roberto Carlos faced Porto seven times during his time with Real Madrid and finished on the losing side only once -- tasting victory on five occasions.

Jesualdo Ferreira's Porto entered the group stage automatically as the Portuguese champion, while Fenerbahçe had to negotiate two qualifying rounds after finishing second in last season's Turkcell Super League.

Fener is Turkey's only representative in Europe after Galatasaray was ousted in the qualifying round, so all Turkish hearts will be beating for the Yellow Canaries this evening.

Where there's a will, there's always a way. All the Canaries need do is put up a good fight and try to get the best result possible. They should take the game to Porto and should not be intimidated by the hostile atmosphere at the Porto stadium. And, even if they lose, they should go down fighting with dignity. An injury to star striker Semih Şentürk could be a headache for Aragones, but the club doctors were optimistic the striker would be fit before match time.

Arsenal visits Dynamo Kiev in the other Group C game today. Dynamo has been without a win in its last 13 Champions League games, losing 11, including the last six. The Gunners, on the other hand, have kept clean sheets in nine of their last 14 Champions League away games, winning four of their last seven European away matches.

Todays Zaman