The 'Group of Death' is truly living up to its billing - Will Dortmund live to tell the tale?

Group F is complicated. Arsenal lead by three points, so a point in their last game at Napoli will suffice. That would also allow Dortmund to qualify at the Italians’ expense, if the Germans match Napoli’s result against Marseille in France.

In many ways, 2013-14 will reveal the true Borussia Dortmund to the rest of Europe. As brilliant as they were last term, they were awful the previous year, when they faced two of this campaign’s group stage opponents in Arsenal and Marseille.

In truth, all have proved that arsenal are worthy of a berth in the round of 16, and even beyond. Arsenal are Champions League regulars who have not failed to make it out of the first phase of the competition since 1999-2000.

Dortmund, meanwhile, famously made it to the final of the competition last season, seeing off the challenges of the likes of Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk and Manchester City en route to Wembley. After spending big in the summer, they are certainly capable of repeating the fairytale run.

As well as having the likes of Marco Reus and Ilkay Gundogan, two of the Bundesliga’s (and indeed Europe’s) finest players on their side, they will be motivated by revenge, eager to show those at the Velodrome and the Emirates that they are no longer the pushovers they were two years ago.

Since their defeat to Bayern Munich in May, they have also added proven talent to their squad in the form of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has made a flying start to life in Germany and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and lost only Mario Gotze from their first-team.

There are still worries, though. They have kept just two clean sheets from their opening five league games and still look a little short-staffed in certain areas, with Kevin Grosskreutz filling in at right-back. However, if they stay largely injury-free, they have all the quality to top the Group of Death, just as they did last year.

No other group in this season’s competition possesses such an array of quality, depth and form. Arsenal, Dortmund and Napoli are all in the running for their respective domestic titles and it is a tragedy for football fans, and UEFA, that one of them won’t be in the Champions League after Christmas.