Holding pieces of paper is the high point of Platini's job
Just 10 minutes until the CL Draw… here are the pots for Platini and his chums to rig. We’ll cover this in more detail this afternoon.
Make your best guesses in the comments as to who gets paired with who! Will Chelsea and Liverpool have to battle AGAIN in the group? How easy will Fergie get it?
Pot One: FC Barcelona, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, AC Milan, Arsenal, Sevilla, Bayern München
Pot Two:Olympique Lyonnais, Internazionale, Real Madrid, CSKA Moskva, FC Porto, AZ Alkmaar, Juventus, Rangers
Pot Three:Olympiacos, Olympique de Marseille, FC Dynamo Kyiv, VfB Stuttgart, Fiorentina, Atlético de Madrid, Girondins de Bordeaux, Beşiktaş
Pot Four:VfL Wolfsburg, Standard de Liège, Maccabi Haifa, FC Zürich, FC Rubin Kazan, Unirea Urziceni, Apoel, Debreceni
Follow on for the LIVE draw…
Oh the excitement, this is Ned and I have hijacked LB’s post. It’s mine! Well the draw is beginning, lets see what glorious groups await the giants of European football.
While we wait for the draw, I can tell you that Fulham have lost today to Amkar Perm in qualifying for the other European league that no one gives a toot about. They did however win on agg 3-2 after that 3-1 lead in the first leg.
Everton are 1 up but Hibbert has been sent off. Villa kick off in a bit….
The suspense, the waiting, the pomp of the ceremony..It’s all too much. I think they are close now..Hang in there.
Ok, here we go…
Group A: Bayern, Juventus, Bordeaux, Haifa.
Group B: Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Besiktas, Wolfsburg.
Group C: AC Milan, Real Madrid, Marseille, Zurich.
Group D: Chelsea, Porto, Athletico Madrid, APOEL.
Group E: Liverpool, Lyon, Fiorentina, Debrechen.
Group F: Barcelona, Inter Milan, Dinamo Kiev, Rubin Kaza.
Group G: Sevilla, Rangers, Stuttgart, Urziceni.
Group H: Arsenal, AZ Almaar, Olympiakos, Standard Liege.
Updating the groups above as the pots are emptied. Standby for Pot 2. There is a lot of BS between draws, they are really draging this out. I hate Platini! Oh man this could take forever! Will I miss lunch? Maybe. It’s pasta special in the cafe today!
John Terry is handed defender of the year and Van der Sar gets keeper of the year. Porto to group D. Lyonand Liverpool? Yawn…. Milan and Real. Hmm that sounds tasty, like the pasta lunch I am missing!
Rangers with Sevilla, they’ll like that, trip to Spain, few beers, beach. Inter and Barcelona is a very tasty tie as Jose pits his wits against the Pepster.
Ok so pot 2 is empty, will probably be another 15 mins of bull before pot 3 gets drawn. They may even roll out Pele, that’s the normal thing to do in these situations eh? Maybe shove a life time achievement award into his fingers. Nope, it’s midfielder of the year award and that goes to Xavi, well done son. So far Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool will be happy. Porto is a tricky trip for Chelsea.
Pot 3 underway as you can see from above, Besiktas for SAF, easy peasy, Rangers will be jumping up and clapping on the spot at the moment. Fiorentina for Liverpool. Arsenal’s group is looking peachy. Wenger is gonna love that. So thats pot 3 done. Striker of the year next…Drum roll please..dlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Messi! What a surprise. Platini clearly had an influence there. Picking his favorite little fleet footed, floppy fringed forward. On to pot 4!
Well there its is. A Ukraine, Russia tie, Wolfsburg the only really challenge to Fergie. Rangers are delirious right now, Arsenal will be walking to the knock out stages, as should Liverpool and Chelsea have it a little harder with Porto and Athletico. I’m off for lunch. Yummmmmm.
I am excited fox has this now since we’ll probably get to watch most, if not all, of these games. a lot of games here I want to watch
@ Spec, yeah pretty crazy that 7 of those 8 teams are first timers in the group stage.
He’s pissed he had to be missing the Spanish Yo Gabba Gabba! reruns.
@spec – should offer a good atmosphere on match days too.
Michel Platini hates all things English. Even English.
Rubin Kazan? Isn’t that a choreographer?
I will point out that the MIGHTY Fulham has already gone through in their Europa League match-up (3-2 on agg) and will be in that draw (tomorrow?).
Arsenal wins the CL draw. How much did the new play-off system this year, with the champions path and the non-champions path, push more cruddy teams through to the CL group stage? For example, with the way the draw used to be wouldn’t Porto and Celtic have been in this draw today and Haifa and Rubin not?
They mentioned that a Hungarian team made it to the group stages for the first time in 14 years. Think that’s exactly what Platini wanted, a wider distribution of the representation. It comes at the expense of sides like Celtic, and the group stages will be even more lopsided than they were last season.
Celtic weren’t doing s**t anyways. And Porto were in the draw. I like it this way frankly.
Georger – Crap, I meant Sporting. They got knocked out by Fiorentina yesterday. I got my Portuguese clubs confused.
The only ‘biggish’ clubs that got knocked out by other large clubs in this last play-off round were – IMO – Celtic, Sporting, Panathanaikos and Anderlecht (?). Not sure those teams will be truly missed in the group stage.
Did I mention that Fulham made it through to the Europa League group stages? Dempsey didn’t even travel and Hodgson hardly played anyone.