Scott McTominay has firmly established himself as one of the Partenopei's most important players over the last 12 months, winning the MVP award in Serie A for 2024/25 after being sold by Man Utd.
Rasmus Hojlund has only recently left the Red Devils but still managed to score on his debut at the weekend, looking like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders in the process.
De Bruyne's homecoming
However, by far the biggest homecoming of course is that of City legend Kevin de Bruyne.
During his 10 years at the Etihad Stadium, the Belgian scored 108 goals and provided an astonishing 170 assists in 422 appearances in all competitions, winning 16 trophies in that time including the club's first-ever treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League.
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Since those heady days of success, City have been on something of a slippery slope, though the one major weapon that they do have in their armoury is that the world's best striker - Erling Haaland - is bang in form ahead of the contest.
Haaland ready to create UCL history
Not content with scoring six in the previous international break, he bagged two more during the weekend's Manchester derby. Indeed, his five goals in four Premier League games this season has given him 1.32 goals per game and just 68 minutes on average between each strike.
He top-scored for City in the competition last season with eight goals, and is just a single goal away from reaching 50 in the UCL in his 48 appearances; were he to score against Antonio Conte's side, he would set a new record for the fewest games played to reach the half-century.
The current record of 62 games has been held by Ruud van Nistelrooy since 2007, and to put the Norwegian's insane goalscoring form into even more context, it took Lionel Messi 66 games to register 50 UCL goals and Kylian Mbappe 79 games.
Conte will no doubt be hoping that his record against Pep Guardiola holds firm on the night. In seven previous encounters, the Italian has come out on top on four occasions, with the Catalan winning the other three.
Only Luis Enrique and Jurgen Klopp have better records against the serial Premier League winner, but no draws between Conte and Pep is an indication of an exciting game in prospect.
Vast improvement needed from Guardiola
City will want to improve upon their UCL record from the league stage last season too.
In the eight games played, they managed just three wins and two draws as well as three losses, scoring 18 but conceding 14. Their 11 points saw them finish way down in 22nd place as a result.
Napoli are unbeaten in 15 straight games; however, they haven't won away against an English side in the competition in 12 attempts (W0 D3 L9) and have also lost their last two encounters with Man City.
The four previous meetings have all been in the UCL group stages, with Napoli winning one in 2011/12 and drawing the other, and City winning both matches in 2017/18 including a 4-2 victory at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
Current form has seen Guardiola's side winning three and losing three of their last six in all competitions, scoring 16 and conceding 10 in the process. In five of those matches, they've scored first, netting seven times in the opening 45 compared to their opponent's three.
For Napoli, their last half dozen matches have seen four wins and two draws, 10 goals scored and just three conceded. As with City, they've scored first in five of the six games, getting five first-half goals and letting in just one before half-time.
Next games to play a part in match strategy?
Though managers often place importance on taking one game at a time, the next league fixtures could well play a part in determining Conte and Guardiola's thinking and in-game strategy.
City take on Arsenal in a high-octane Premier League clash on Sunday, whilst the Partenopei don't play until Monday against 18th-placed Pisa.
To that end, we could well see a visiting team throwing absolutely everything at a side that have already buckled when put under pressure this season.
Whilst it's ostensibly true that whatever happens in this UCL opener isn't necessarily likely to impact things at this particular moment, nor will either club want to get their European campaign off on the wrong foot.
City have Monaco, Villarreal and Dortmund to come in their next three fixtures in the competition, none of which are likely to be easy, with Napoli facing Sporting, PSV and Eintracht Frankfurt.
Putting a strong marker down in this match will at least send out a battle cry that will be heard across Europe and put the rest of the Champions League teams on notice that either of these teams could be a force to be reckoned with on the continent this season.
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