Champions League draw was this morning. Here’s a quick summary of how it looks for all the teams and how some of them may be feeling about their chances.
Happiest teams: Inter Milan, Manchester United, Benfica, Borussia Dortmund, Porto, Barcelona, AC Milan
Gutted: All of Group A
More after the jump…
| GROUP A |
| Bayern Munich…can’t complain. Benefitted from UEFA co-efficient system to get top seed but were third best in Bundesliga last season. |
| Villarreal…Ouch |
| Manchester City…Knew it was never going to be a dream draw but this is almost a worst case scenario. Hard to feel sorry for billionaire playthings. |
| Napoli…They’d be okay if Maradona was still playing for them. |
| GROUP B |
| Inter Milan…No one wants to play teams like Inter. They just know how to get it done and play over their heads in Champions League |
| CSKA Moscow…Toss up between them and Lille for second |
| Lille…see above |
| Trabzonspor…Turkish FA essentially just wrote them a 20m Euro cheque last night by kicking Fenerbahce out and handing their Champs League spot to them. Be kind of nervy of them to complain about their group given how they parachuted in at the last second. |
| GROUP C |
| Manchester United…Not a great record against Portuguese teams but they’ll coast through this group. |
| Benfica…Maybe biased because I got to see them play twice this summer in Portugal but they looked good. Aimar, Saviola…nothing to sneeze at. |
| Basle…Potential spoilers if Benfica don’t buckle down |
| Otelul Galati…Not potential spoilers. |
| GROUP D |
| Real Madrid…One of the tougher draws of the top seed teams. They’ll go through of course but they’d have liked an easier route |
| Lyon…Champs League veterans. Should tough out the Ajax ties and the away game in Croatia to take second. |
| Ajax…Scoring goals in Eredivisie but this ain’t the Eridivisie |
| Dinamo Zagreb…Potential spoiler |
| GROUP E |
| Chelsea…Enough concern in this group to make this a nervous Champs League debut for new manager AVB |
| Valencia…How did they not win in Europe when they had Villa, Silva and Mata? Now they have none of them. Can see them struggling. |
| Bayer Leverkusen…Could take points off everyone in the group but not exactly lighting up Bundesliga early doors |
| Genk…Mid-table in Belgian Juliper league. Got here by beating Maccabi Haifa on PK’s. No chance. |
| GROUP F |
| Arsenal…This year’s car crash team. Everyone is fascinated by Arsenal and Arsene Wenge. No Fabregas, no Nasri. No real improvement to the squad and lots of injuries early on. Not a certainty to advance by any stretch of the imagination. |
| Marseille…Will match up well against Arsenal |
| Olympiakos…Beat Arsenal two years ago when they were in the same Champions League group in 2009/10 and went through as the second place team. |
| Borussia Dortmund…Given what they could’ve had as a fourth seed, Dortmund may be the happiest team in Europe this morning. This is definitely a group they can advance from. |
| GROUP G |
| Porto…Gotta be the happiest of the top seeds. Lots of travel but as perhaps the weakest top seed, they avoided some land mines in the form of AC Milan, Man City, Napoli, Dortmund. Should advance even though they sold off most of the players who got them to this point. |
| Shakhtar Donetsk…Toss up between them and Zenit for second. |
| Zenit St Petersburg…As above |
| APOEL…No chance, even in a weak group. |
| GROUP H |
| Barcelona…Must have been cringing when Milan got pulled out as the second seed in their group but that’s balanced by the two bottom feeders that came after. |
| AC Milan…Easiest group to pick top two. Cruise to the knockout round |
| BATE…Not the draw they wanted. |
| Viktoria Plzen…At least you’re from Plzen. You’ll have decent beer to go back to when you’re out after the round robin stage. |
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