2005/2006 Champions League Draw…

For my regular visitors, the following post is for my benefit, and my benefit alone, so I wont be offended if you don’t read on, but I assure you, normal service will resume shortly.

The teams were drawn yesterday, for this season’s European Champions League competition. The following teams will face each other within their groups.

Group A – Prediction, Bayern and Juve
Bayern Munich
Juventus
Club Brugge
Rapid Vienna

Group B, - Prediction Ajax, and Arsenal
Arsenal
Ajax
Sparta Prague
Thun (who?)

Group C -Prediction Barcelona and Panathanaikos
Barcelona
Panathanaikos
Werder Bremen
Udinese (who?)

Group D – Prediction, Manchester United and Villareal
Manchester United (Yay!)
Villareal
Lille
Benfica

Group E - Prediction Milan and PSV
AC Milan
PSV Eindhoven
Schalke
Fenerbahce

Group F- Prediction, Real and Olympiakos
Real Madrid
Lyon
Olympiakos
Rosenborg

Group G - Prediction, Chelsea and Liverpool
Liverpool
Chelsea
Anderlecht
Real Betis

Group H - Prediction, Inter and Rangers
Inter Milan
Porto
Rangers
Artmedia Bratislavia


Commentary

As the only group I’m really interested in is Group D, I’ll start off with them...

Lille are a French team who somehow manage to get into the Champion’s League year after year, but I suspect that this is because the French domestic league is so poor, with most of the best French players housed in England (living with Arsene Wenger.)

Villareal beat Everton in the qualifiers to progress to the Champions League proper, but were it not for a blind referee, things may have well been different. Having watched both legs, I can’t say that I see anything within the team that will trouble United. They are organised, but we have a much better strike-force in Rooney and Van Nistelrooy, and defensively we are superior to them, although, Gary Neville’s injury early on in the match against Debreceni was very unfortunate.

As for Benfica, we should be able to dispatch them quite easily.

All in all Sir Alex Ferguson should be pleased, and if we f*ck up, God help the players.

As for Arsenal’s group, they’ll struggle through the group stages as they usually do, and eventually get beaten in the next round. Wenger still hasn’t been able to prep his players for European competition. Henry hates physical games, so he usually goes missing during these matches.

As for Arsenal and Chelsea, I think Chelsea will top the group, and Liverpool will qualify in second place. It’s a mouth-watering prospect though.

Two years ago, I would have said that Rangers were in the group of death, but Porto aren’t the team they used to be since Mourinho left them, and how Bratislava qualified, I’ll never know. I expect Inter to top the group, with Rangers qualifying in second place.

It will be interesting to see how many of my predictions will be correct…

Normal service will resume shortly.