Champions League 2011/12 Group Stage Draw: Man City Get Tough Draw, Arsenal Stuck With Dortmund

Chris Wright

25th, August 2011

10 Comments

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?

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10 Comments

  1. Ash says:

    Real madrid and lyon play every year

  2. edgar says:

    Luckily for Manchester City they play offensive positive football……..oh wait

  3. Teddy Ball game says:

    @ash I was just about to say that.

  4. aspers says:

    cant wait for cavanni, lavezzi and hamsik to run run riot round a very noisey team, wont no what hit haha

  5. Dan says:

    Napoli and City to qualify from Group A.

    Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal in Group F.

  6. Ben says:

    Ajax stuck with the pool of death… again

  7. johnjohnsonfromwisconsin says:

    dan is an optimist! City to qualify over bayern?

    scratch that optimist…dan’s a deluded poznan dancer!

  8. Atssip says:

    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

  9. ande says:

    @Dan: make that Napoli and Munich.

  10. QueerAsFuß says:

    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.

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