sevilla have won two uefa cups in the last five years. They got more coefficient points for winning the Uefa cup last year than Chelsea did for being runners up in the CL last year.

it's Chelsea, milan, liverpool, barcelona, arsenal, man utd, sevilla, Lyon, Real Madrid. And to use a sopranos phrase, real are only a cunt hair ahead of Bayern, psv and villareal, who all did much worse than Real in 2003-4, so they could slip further still unless they at least make the quarter finals.

Just looking over that draw again, it hits you how bloated and over-sized the CL is.

Four groups would be plenty.

Of course there are no easy matches in UEFA Champions League. We take our opponents very seriously, they are a very good side, solid professionals who work very hard and want to win as much as we do. It will be very difficult but I believe if we play like we are capable and with passion as well as respect our opponents for 90 minutes we will do very well.

And I am the Life wrote:

QUOTE:
your draw is very easy, unless of course you keep playing this wretchedly. I'd much sooner be playing atletico than villarreal.

atletico were in pot 4, villareal were in pot 2. Manchester Utd's pot 4 team are Aalborg, who lost 3 of their first 5 games in the Danish league this season.

Manchester Utd haven't got a hard group, not unless they have "some injuries". Even then the way that they can string passes together like no other British team should be enough to see them through as the grip of english clubs grows tighter on Europe's top competitions.

heh, the difficulty of a CL group is largely measured by the third strongest team in the group. Villareal are the toughest second seed in that draw but their squad can be a bit thin up front. It's toss up between celtic and zenit for the toughest third seed.

Atletico have some very good attacking players, but they leak goals like a sieve, psv eindhoven are an ordinary enough side, and Liverpool had to turn in one of their worst performances of the decade to lose to marseilles last season, and they won the away leg 4-1 without breaking too much of a sweat.

There isn't that much to worry about for them, by contrast man utd have the best defence in spain to worry about and a team that usually wins all of its home games.

And I am the Life wrote:

QUOTE:
It's toss up between celtic and zenit for the toughest third seed.

Zenit St Petersburg with Arshavin are definitely better than Celtic.

Take Arshavin out of the equation, though, and pound for pound there's very little to separate the two teams.

It'll be fascinating to see if Zenit can carry their Bayern/Rangers form over into the Champions League -- even if Arshavin leaves they still have plenty of good players. Personally I'd like to see him play one season in the CL with them before leaving.

Milan's sabbatical season translates into the so called lifetime chance for Sphincter to win the pot question is can they make it trough to the knock out stage? oh and The Old Slapper can also make the most of it mind - so in other words no matter how you put it it's orifices business

So, er, this could be a bit of a complicated household for the next few weeks or so.

What strikes me this year is the number of familiar names in pots one, two and three. No wonder Platini got so many votes for promising to open out the competition, it's football's equivelent of the Old Boys Network.

Another strong home record for us I think

The only real opposition seem like Villareal this season

:P

Which 'us'?

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
Zenit St Petersburg with Arshavin are definitely better than Celtic.

Take Arshavin out of the equation, though, and pound for pound there's very little to separate the two teams.

It'll be fascinating to see if Zenit can carry their Bayern/Rangers form over into the Champions League -- even if Arshavin leaves they still have plenty of good players.

Arshavin missed the second leg against Bayern though didn't he? And I remember a Jonathan Wilson article for the Guardian prior to that tie which was along the lines of 'trust me, if Bayern don't win the first leg in Munich, they're in serious shit for the second leg...'. That was followed with a load of reader comments telling him to stop being ridiculous, how could an eastern European side full of players we've never heard of really give Bayern a going over (even though they'd just twatted Dortmund) and how Bayern were going to roast Zenit... and then came the actual tie. I wish I'd been Jonathan Wilson watching that second leg, he must have been thinking about those comments and pissing himself laughing.

Point is they're a very good side without him, though we will of course find out exactly how good now. If UEFA don't rig the whole thing against them.

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
Just looking over that draw again, it hits you how bloated and over-sized the CL is.

Four groups would be plenty.

This is what makes the re-branding of the UEFA Cup such a joke. The reason why the UEFA Cup was a good competition back in the day was because the European Cup was only for champions and so teams 2-? (4? depending on coefficient) went into the UEFA Cup.

danielmak wrote:

QUOTE:
Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
Just looking over that draw again, it hits you how bloated and over-sized the CL is.

Four groups would be plenty.

This is what makes the re-branding of the UEFA Cup such a joke. The reason why the UEFA Cup was a good competition back in the day was because the European Cup was only for champions and so teams 2-? (4? depending on coefficient) went into the UEFA Cup.

You could argue that the UEFA Cup was a stronger competition, or at least had greater depth, than the old European Cup. If not every year at least some years.

The previous season's national champions (let us say 1974-75) would be in the European Cup the following season (75-76). But if the the national champs of 74-75 did not win their leaue the next season too, the winner would most likely come from one of the teams that challenegd the previous year, now in the UEFA Cup? So arguably the "current" season's best team was in the UEFA CUP.

Not sure how convincing that is, but I found it interesting thinking about it. Have to check the league winners and UEFA cup qualifiers in Europe over the years.

The CL is really a cross between the European cup and old uefa cup, with the added Brucie "bonus" of a league element to it!

NiceOneCenturian wrote:

QUOTE:
What strikes me this year is the number of familiar names in pots one, two and three. No wonder Platini got so many votes for promising to open out the competition, it's football's equivelent of the Old Boys Network.

And familiar names inevitably lead to the same fixtures played almost annually, or even more a la Man U vs Roma, Man U vs Celtic, Liverpool vs Marseille or Chelsea vs Barca. Martin Samuel alluded to this briefly in a recent article, and it made me wonder why nobody else has before. It's good to see "lesser" nations represented now, but the whole thing is designed to assist the huge clubs to get to the latter stages. I'm bored shitless personally.

In fairness, Celtic and Man Utd have only ever drawn each other once before.

The prime example of a CL fixture that should never be played ever again is Liverpool v Chelsea.