Champions League 2011/12 Group Stage Draw: Man City Get Tough Draw, Arsenal Stuck With Dortmund
By Chris Wright
All of UEFA’s perspex balls of destiny have been drawn from their respective goldfish bowls of fate and, as a result, the groups for the 2011/12 Champions League look like this…
Group A: Bayern Munich, Villarreal, Manchester City, Napoli
Group B: Inter Milan, CSKA Moscow, Lille, Trabzonspor
Group C: Manchester United, Benfica, Basel, Otelul Galati
Group D: Real Madrid, Lyon, Ajax, Dinamo Zagreb
Group E: Chelsea, Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen, Genk
Group F: Arsenal, Marseille, Olympiakos, Borussia Dortmund
Group G: Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St Petersburg, APOEL
Group H: Barcelona, AC Milan, BATE Borisov, Viktoria Plzen
Well, Man City’s draw could have been a lot worse with Barcelona, AC Milan and Dortmund being the toughest possible permutation but it’s not as though the balls have been especially kind to them – Bayern Munich are seasoned heavyweights whereas both Villarreal and Napoli are not to be underestimated.
You’d make both Manchester United and Chelsea to make it out of their respective groups alive, but Arsenal have been saddled with a tricky couple of fixtures against Bundesliga upstarts Borussia Dortmund – the only fourth seed team (other than Napoli, who were drawn first) that any of the big boys have genuine reason to worry about. Theoretically at least.
Oh, and Porto are certainly going to be racking up the Airmiles this season, with round trips to Ukraine, Russia and Cyprus to look forward to. Joy.
Any thoughts Pies fans?
Do Arsenal Artificially Enhance The Emirates Atmosphere? – OTP
Big Cup Bullshit – The FCF
Guess UEFA Cup Finalists From Their Shirt – Three Match Ban
20 Damning Steve Kean Quotes – Mirror Football
'Abandon All Hope…' – Sunshine Room
Leaked Blackburn Letter Shows Extent Of Turmoil – EPL Talk
Genius Who Couldn't Exist Today: Dragan Stojkovic – LBITCR
German Philosopher Reflects On Jose Mourinho – Futfanatico
Rule Changes That Could Hand Title To Man Utd – FourFourTwo
Welcome To Posh – Danny Last for IBWM
Real madrid and lyon play every year
Luckily for Manchester City they play offensive positive football……..oh wait
@ash I was just about to say that.
cant wait for cavanni, lavezzi and hamsik to run run riot round a very noisey team, wont no what hit haha
Napoli and City to qualify from Group A.
Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal in Group F.
Ajax stuck with the pool of death… again
dan is an optimist! City to qualify over bayern?
scratch that optimist…dan’s a deluded poznan dancer!
need to see a great Arsenal in this group hope for thme to make nice game because after the group it will be harder than Dortmund or OM
@Dan: make that Napoli and Munich.
I’m a Schalke/Arsenal fan and so all I really have to do is hope Dortmund doesn’t make it through. Thanks for making it super easy for me little balls o’ glory!
And Bayern….part of me wants to see Manny Neuer totally rock it win the CL and the rest of me wants to punch him in his little balls o’ glory for being a Schalke traitor.
I feel like such a football fail though in that I am not familiar with a lot of these teams. I guess I wasn’t paying attention in qualifying. My neighbour moved his big screen telly in front of the window and he has a Setanta subscription so I should be able to (creepily)watch a lot more CL now.
Зенит are Schalke coloured and also sponsored by Gazprom so I guess I’ll root for them in group G. They also look like they will cut you, man:
http://en.fc-zenit.ru/main/team/
Especially #5 there, I just want to give him a sandwich and some prozac.