Champions League Draw

I watched the Champions League Draw last night, for obvious reasons this is the first one I took a real interest in, the draw itself is one of the most mind numbing experiences I have ever sat through. UEFA seemed to be unsure if what they wanted was a draw or an award ceremony, they mixed in draw between annoncements of UEFA player of the Year 2010 (Strange to have in August.) The draw was split into a very confusing structure in which each team is drawn into a group where they can not play against a team from the same country and where each federation would have their games split between Red and Blue groups to spread out the TV coverage.

It was a strange draw with one person drawing the team and Gary Lineker Drawing the group which ment that Tottenham didn't get a choce of Group and missed out on the easiest group (B) as Shalke could not go into the same group as Bremen.

Anyway the Groups are:

Group A
Inter Milan, Werder Bremen, Tottenham, FC Twente

Group B
Lyon, Benfica, Schalke, Hapoel Tel-Aviv

Group C
Manchester United, Valencia, Rangers, Bursaspor

Group D
Barcelona, Panathinaikos, FC Copenhagen, Rubin Kazan

Group E
Bayern Munich, AS Roma, Basel, CFR Cluj

Group F
Chelsea, Marseille, Spartak Moscow, Zilina

Group G
AC Milan, Real Madrid, Ajax, Auxerre

Group H
Arsenal, Shakhtar Donetsk, Braga, Partizan Belgrade

So for Tottenham I think that drawing the Holders, Inter Milan, is never a great draw however With Breman and Twente at least we have no long haul mid week flights. I still think that Group B is the easiest group but at least we avoided Group G where AC Milan, Real Madrid and Ajax have 20 wins between them. so not great, but could be worse.

Champions League Draw

Well for my money the most interesting champions league draw ever has just taken place - I wonder why I think that? - Tottenham have been drawn against Swiss runners up, Young Boys - warning do not try and Google them without safe search switched on!! - there is lots of excitement from Spurs fans who think that the group stage is a dead cert, perhaps I have just been a Spurs fan too long, but I struggle to feel that confident, after all they did just beat Fenerbache so are having a good season. But I do think it was one of the easier draws, but so was our World Cup group, so no chicken counting.

Spurs are the only British Team in the draw today as Celtic went out and everyone else already waiting in the group stage, however the Europa League (Uefa Cup) had there draw as well today, no real problems for the British teams

Liverpool vs Trabzonspor - Turkey
Celtic vs Utrecht - Holland
Dundee Utd vs AEK Athens - Greece
Rapid Vienna vs Villa - Austria
CSKA Sofia vs TNS - Bulgaria
Odense vs Motherwell - Denmark
Timisoara vs Man City - Romania

So I am not expecting too many British Teams to miss out with TNS, who are the lowest rated team in the competition and Dundee having the hardest matches, but still you never know. All I need to do now is get my ticket for the Spurs game, I'm actually going to get to see a Champions League game!