UEFA Champions League Draw and Analysis

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Barcelona Face Inter but English Clubs Can be Happy

Reigning CL Champions Barcelona

The Champions League draw was made this morning at UEFA headquarters in Monaco.

Reigning CL Champions Barcelona will play Serie A Champions Inter Milan in the pick of the round. Joining them in Group F are Russian champions Rubin Khazan and Ukrainians Dinamo Kiev, in by far the most geographically spread out group. Rubin play in the city of Kazan in Tatarstan, where the Volga meets the Kazanka River, a while 449 miles east of Moscow.

English clubs fared very well with Chelsea drawing Porto, Atletico Madrid and APOEL Nicosia (Cyprus); and their London rivals Arsenal drawing Dutch Champions AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos and Standard Liege in a surprisingly favourable group.

Liverpool drew Lyon, Fiorentina and the first Hungarian side to compete at this stage for over a decade Debreceni; and Manchester United pulled CSKA Moscow, Besiktas (Turkey) and German Bundesliga champions VfL Wolfsburg, perhaps the toughest of the sides in Pot 4, but still experiencing the CL for the first time.

Christian Purslow General manager of Liverpool told Sky Sports News, “We’re very happy. We look at the traveling schedule and there are short trips to France and Italy.”

Group A
Bayern Munich
Juventus
Bordeaux
Maccabi Haifa

Group B
Manchester United
CSKA Moskow
Besiktas
VfL Wolfsburg

Group C
AC Milan
Real Madrid
Marseille
FC Zurich

Group D
Chelsea
FC Porto
Atletico Madrid
APOEL Nicosia

Group E
Liverpool
Lyon
Fiorentina
Debreceni

Group F
Barcelona
Inter Milan
Dynamo Kiev
FC Rubin Kazan

Group G
FC Sevilla
Rangers
VfB Stuttgart
Unirea Urziceni (Romania)

Group H
Arsenal
AZ Alkmaar
Olympiakos
Standard Liege

The final will be at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeau providing a great incentive especially to La Liga clubs, not to mention Liverpool with all their Spanish connections.