Champions league draw, again

Well I was told that Spurs would never make it to the champions league, then I was told that we would be lucky to qualify, next came the certain fact that we would not qualify from our "group of death."
You can imagine how happy I am then to be waiting for the draw for the knock out stage of the competition, there are not a lot of easy teams left at this stage so anyone we get will of cause be tough, our opponents will be out of the second placed teams - not including Arsenal or Inter Milan - so it will be out of: Roma, AC Milan, Lyon, Copenhagen or Marseille. Of these I guess I would like Copenhagen and dislike AC Milan - although our last visit to Milan was definitely an interesting event.
I am very glad we finished top of our group however as things look a lot worse for Arsenal who will be travelling to Germany or Spain to face one of: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or FC Schalke. So I guess they will be hoping for Schalke but they are by no means an easy team, and I do not really understand Arsene Wenger's assertion that they don't fear Barcelona as they were beaten so badly last year, but I guess that's his job.

Anyway onto the draw:

We got AC Milan in what I am sure is the game of the round, at least no one can say we did it the easy way, the strategy should be to try and keep 11 men on the pitch there and then destroy them at home, it has worked so far.
Other games
Roma vs Shakhtar
Valencia vs Schalke
Inter vs Munich (so arsenal are going to Spain.)
Man Utd vs Marseille
Barcelona vs Arsenal - repeat of last year
Chelsea vs Copenhagen
Real Madrid vs Lyon
So not a great draw for spurs, but at least it is worse for Arsenal.

Should London Go It Alone for Euro 2020

Sticking with Tournaments for a while I have been thinking of late that Boris should look at tabling a Bid for the Uefa European Championships, I say Boris rather than the Government as I believe that London should look to hold the tournament alone, Obviously the tournaments are usually held by one or sometimes two countries but London probably has much better facilities than Austria and Switzerland combined. In order to hold the tournament you need 8 venues all of which must be over 30,000 in capacity.

London has (or Has Planned):

Wembley (Home of England) – 90,000
Emirates (Home of Arsenal) – 60,355
Twickenham (Home of Rugby) – 82,000
Olympic Stadium (2012) – 80,000
Northumberland Road (Proposed Tottenham Stadium) – 56,250
New West Ham (Proposed West Ham Stadium) – 50,000
Stamford Bridge (Home of Chelsea) – 42,055
The Valley (Home of Charlton) 29,111

A Total Seat across the 8 venues of 489,771

Compare this to Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland and you have

Vienna – 53,295
Klagenfurt – 31,957
Salzburg – 31,020
Innsbruck – 31,600
Basel – 42,000
Bern – 31,907
Geneva – 31,228
Zurich – 30,000

Just over half the total of seats at 283,007 in fact if you were to Host the tournament in London, Austria and Switzerland then only Vienna would be in the eight largest stadiums – And to be honest I am quite sure that as there will not need to be any investment in Stadiums or Infrastructure (Everything being upgraded in 2012) and the compact nature of the city with one of the most interconnected transport systems in the world (Being able to get around the entire area for the cost of a one day travel card.) I am sure that some money could be invested to give the Valley a capacity boost to take them over 30,000 (or if they get back into the premiership over 40,000)

I know that it is not normally a single city that hosts the tournament but London has got a larger population than Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland all of which have hosted the tournament, and have a larger population than Scotland and Ireland combined who have prepared a joint bid.

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!