Champions League 2011-2012 Draw

Atro

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Monaco 16H45 london GMT.

Any bets?

Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund are the unseeded teams everyone wants to avoid.

Discuss!
 

evil wasabi

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Monaco 16H45 london GMT.

Any bets?

Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund are the unseeded teams everyone wants to avoid.

Discuss!

I would love to see Real Madrid in the same group with Man City. Very similar styles.

I would imagine no one wants to face off against Man City or Napoli, both of which have great squads of International stars.

Pot one - Manchester United, Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Porto, Inter Milan.

Pot two - Shakhtar Donetsk, Lyon, Villarreal, AC Milan, Valencia, Marseille, CSKA Moscow, Benfica.

Pot three - Zenit St Petersburg, Man City, Olympiakos, Ajax, Bayer Leverkusen, BATE Borisov, Basle, Lille.

Pot four - Borussia Dortmund, Trabzonspor, Dinamo Zagreb, Napoli, APOEL, Genk, Otelul Galati, Viktoria Plzen.

Right now, the teams that are overvalued for their pots, clearly, would be Arsenal, Porto, and Inter Milan. All of these teams have suffered personnel loses. Porto's star player, Falcao, is now with Atletico Madrid. The guy who took them to the CL is managing in England. Arsenal's best two midfielders left for Barca and Man City, respectively. Inter Milan parted ways with Etoo this week, and It's not certain that Milito will ever regain his form from two years ago, back when he was at his peak.

In pot 2, the team that jumps out at me is Valencia. I'm a fan of Valencia, but they are a selling team, and they just sold Mata to Chelsea. He was their best player. But this team didn't stutter once after selling David Villa and David Silva last summer. So maybe Unai Emery will make this work.

Clearly Man City is undervalued in pot 3. But then so is Napoli in pot 4 - severely undervalued. Napoli should be a pot 2 team. Look at their squad. It's full of talent. Hamsik, Lavezzi, Cavani, Lavezzi and Inler are all top flight players. That is a team that can demolish giants.

So hopefully Lyon will get a good group, yeah.
 

evil wasabi

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A: Bayern, Villarreal, Citeh, Napoli
B: Inter, CSKA, Lille, Trabzonspor
C: Man. Utd, Benfica, Basel, Otelul
D: Madrid, Lyon, Ajax, Zagreb
E: Chelsea, Valencia, Leverkusen, Genk
F: Arsenal, Marseille, Olympiakos, Dortmund
G: Porto, Shakhtar, Zenit, APOEL
H: Barcelona, Milan, BATE, Plzen

Thoughts:
A - WOW. No kidding that's the most ridiculous group of all time.
B - Who is Moratti fluffing to get in a group with Trabzonspor?!
C - This is a pretty boring group. United to coast. In fact, so beneficial is this group for United that they probably won't even worry about managing league matches against the CL matches.
D - Legitimately tough group. Madrid and Lyon both want thhis rematch. Ajax has talent, but usually goes nowhere.
E - Chelsea should coast, but will be interesting to see if Valencia can cope with the loss of Mata like it did last year when it lost Silva and Villa. Leverkusen might take advantage. Valencia should hope to play all their away games now. It will be painful if they lose their home games early due to their reshuffling.
F - Shitty group for Arsenal. Marseille and Dortmund aren't going to make things easy for them.
G - Get the fuckk out. No one cares about G.
H - kind of obvious with this group and could end up being the CL final match up.
 

K_K

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i like our group, i think we got a good one. not as good a one as manu, but what can you do. if i'm honest i've never even heard of genk. hopefully that's a good thing. haha i think we'll be alright. though i'm still of the mindset that lamps needs to be shuffled into an almost cuatemoc blanco position in the last world cup. he's getting a bit old to be genuinely effective. really wish we coulda got modric. but the rest of our new signings seem to be good. we'll see how it pans out. the season hasn't gone as well as i'd like it to so far, but we're two games in and its a long year. maybe this group we've got is a sign, maybe its chelsea's year. don't quote me, i'm sure we'll get knocked out

also i hope citeh get slaughtered.
 

evil wasabi

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i like our group, i think we got a good one. not as good a one as manu, but what can you do. if i'm honest i've never even heard of genk. hopefully that's a good thing. haha i think we'll be alright. though i'm still of the mindset that lamps needs to be shuffled into an almost cuatemoc blanco position in the last world cup. he's getting a bit old to be genuinely effective. really wish we coulda got modric. but the rest of our new signings seem to be good. we'll see how it pans out. the season hasn't gone as well as i'd like it to so far, but we're two games in and its a long year. maybe this group we've got is a sign, maybe its chelsea's year. don't quote me, i'm sure we'll get knocked out

also i hope citeh get slaughtered.

Mata is a better player than Modric, who probably wouldn't do well on a big team. Plus the signing of Mata is better for the PL than pilfering Modric from lesser known Tottnum, who are truly a small club when Mata says "arsenal? Yes they are a great club. Tottenham? I don't know what that is."
I personally think that bringing in top talent from other leagues is what makes the PL the strongest league in the world.
 

K_K

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Mata is a better player than Modric, who probably wouldn't do well on a big team. Plus the signing of Mata is better for the PL than pilfering Modric from lesser known Tottnum, who are truly a small club when Mata says "arsenal? Yes they are a great club. Tottenham? I don't know what that is."
I personally think that bringing in top talent from other leagues is what makes the PL the strongest league in the world.
i'd say mata just proved himself this weekend. as did lukaku. both of them were lighting up their part of the pitch when they got ahold of the ball. lukaku looked huge in the box, and even though it was against norwich with the way he was ready to get stuck in and start shooting he'll be scoring sooner rather than later. and mata got that important game sealing goal in the end in his first match in a blue jersey i think these guys might be what was needed to help inspire our front line. torres can't do it on his own. drogba as much as i like him, and think he has become a legend for the club should probably look into retiring. same with some of our more complacent players. kalou, lamps, anelka, and even JT i really hope this new blood can inspire and enhance the talent we have.


anyways speaking of new talent. fuckin arsenal need to bring in some. did you see them get gutted by the mancs? it scares me a bit because we gotta play manu in a few weeks. and its kinda scary to watch arsenal implode. but then again wenger's plans to spend little, bring in youngsters, and do fuck all else aren't going to fit with this season. i think if they don't do some good signings, quick, they're gonna wind up like liverpool a couple seasons ago finishing mid table, and looking like a pack of clowns. i don't know who any of their targets might be, but they need to buy a few gooduns by wednesday.
 

evil wasabi

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i'd say mata just proved himself this weekend. as did lukaku. both of them were lighting up their part of the pitch when they got ahold of the ball. lukaku looked huge in the box, and even though it was against norwich with the way he was ready to get stuck in and start shooting he'll be scoring sooner rather than later. and mata got that important game sealing goal in the end in his first match in a blue jersey i think these guys might be what was needed to help inspire our front line. torres can't do it on his own. drogba as much as i like him, and think he has become a legend for the club should probably look into retiring. same with some of our more complacent players. kalou, lamps, anelka, and even JT i really hope this new blood can inspire and enhance the talent we have.


anyways speaking of new talent. fuckin arsenal need to bring in some. did you see them get gutted by the mancs? it scares me a bit because we gotta play manu in a few weeks. and its kinda scary to watch arsenal implode. but then again wenger's plans to spend little, bring in youngsters, and do fuck all else aren't going to fit with this season. i think if they don't do some good signings, quick, they're gonna wind up like liverpool a couple seasons ago finishing mid table, and looking like a pack of clowns. i don't know who any of their targets might be, but they need to buy a few gooduns by wednesday.

The main idea with Mata was that he was feeding David Villa goals back at Valencia, then he was feeding Soldado. Mata has a killer instinct but as an assist man he's more dangerous. Torres needs that badly because no one is really servicing him.
 

K_K

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that could have also been the job of benayoun, but no one ever gave him a shot and now he's looking for a club to retire with. hell if we'd managed to get stevie g a couple of years back, with yossi, and torres we'd have had a part of the liverpool attack force, but on a better salary and actually contending for trophies. either way you're totally right. until torres can get someone who knows how to work with him he's going to look awkward up front and the rest of the team will have that unsure look about them. i'm sure mata can help that.
 

evil wasabi

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Group E
Chelsea 2 - 0 Bayer Leverkusen
KRC Genk 0 - 0 Valencia

Group F
Borussia Dortmund 1 - 1 Arsenal
Olympiakos 0 - 1 Marseille

Group G
Apoel Nicosia 2 - 1 Zenit St Petersburg
FC Porto 2 - 1 Shakhtar Donetsk

Group H
Barcelona 2 - 2 AC Milan
Viktoria Plzen 1 - 1 BATE Borisov
 

K_K

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its nice to see barca draw. it'd be hilarious for them to not get through, but they will.

also chelsea last night playing without JT or lamps! it was different, experimental, and it worked we were still a bit weak at the back, but we always are. and torres couldn't score, but he got the assists on both goals. so there's something.
 

evil wasabi

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JT and Lampard are a bit old now. They won't be part of the manager's plans for long. Especially a really young manager who is going to want a lot of really young players. Chelsea's future is Juan Mata, Ramires and David Luiz. Possibly Danny Sturridge also, who has been more useful than Torres lately.
 

K_K

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sturridge has been turning it on quite well. i like the direction we're taking. no more of the "untouchable" players in the line up. that front three of torres, sturridge, and mata is pretty damn solid, and would be even better when torres gets on form. at the same time though i think the experience of the older players is still needed to help these new kids break into the team.

i am however a bit worried about united on sunday. how's roma been treating you so far this season? stekelenburg is a good keeper, but based on some of your results i don't know if he's been playing, or playing as well as he can.
 

evil wasabi

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sturridge has been turning it on quite well. i like the direction we're taking. no more of the "untouchable" players in the line up. that front three of torres, sturridge, and mata is pretty damn solid, and would be even better when torres gets on form. at the same time though i think the experience of the older players is still needed to help these new kids break into the team.

i am however a bit worried about united on sunday. how's roma been treating you so far this season? stekelenburg is a good keeper, but based on some of your results i don't know if he's been playing, or playing as well as he can.

Roma lost at home but the loss wasn't as painful as it would have been under Ranieri or Spaletti, where we would expect that they could do more (up to a limit). Here we lost, but it's understood that we have a new coach who took Barcelona B to the highest level it could go using youth players. That's huge. I'm hoping to see Erik Lamela in action soon. He's our guy from Argentina and some Dani Osvaldo as well. A lot of really young guys who oculd very easily make this a dynasty.
 

K_K

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shame you guys got rid of mexes, he to me seemed to have great potential. and see that's the thing about a new coach. faith has to be vested in him for a while as he breaks in new ways and strategies, but he's gotta start delivering at some point. and there's a huge difference between running the barca youth team in division 3 of la liga, and running a huge club like roma. he's definitely got his work cut out for him. though good on getting rid of raneiri. other than buy players who we then got rid of over the years he wasn't the greatest. though he did get us back into the champion's league.

its a long season though, and you guys have made some good signings, and have a solid squad you're certainly good enough to get back into the champion's league next season. when napoli got good enough to get back in there i'll never know, but after seeing them play man city, in manchester, and pull a point out of it, they got some quality. not maradonna quality of the 80's, but some quality.
 

evil wasabi

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shame you guys got rid of mexes, he to me seemed to have great potential. and see that's the thing about a new coach. faith has to be vested in him for a while as he breaks in new ways and strategies, but he's gotta start delivering at some point. and there's a huge difference between running the barca youth team in division 3 of la liga, and running a huge club like roma. he's definitely got his work cut out for him. though good on getting rid of raneiri. other than buy players who we then got rid of over the years he wasn't the greatest. though he did get us back into the champion's league.

its a long season though, and you guys have made some good signings, and have a solid squad you're certainly good enough to get back into the champion's league next season. when napoli got good enough to get back in there i'll never know, but after seeing them play man city, in manchester, and pull a point out of it, they got some quality. not maradonna quality of the 80's, but some quality.

Mexes was on his way out and signed with Milan before Luis Enrique came in. Vucinic, who was a great forward for us, was on his way out as well, knowing that he could get more money at Juve or Tottnum. Retention of veteran players only applies to De Rossi right now. If Totti says he wants to leave, Sabatini and De Benetto would wave goodbye and say farewell. Roma is done with older players.

Look at Chelsea - if you're 30+, you only get a season to season contract. That's the way to do things. Don't budge on that. Pay players handsomely for what they do, and nothing for what they don't.
 

snkino

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Mexes was on his way out and signed with Milan before Luis Enrique came in. Vucinic, who was a great forward for us, was on his way out as well, knowing that he could get more money at Juve or Tottnum. Retention of veteran players only applies to De Rossi right now. If Totti says he wants to leave, Sabatini and De Benetto would wave goodbye and say farewell. Roma is done with older players.

Look at Chelsea - if you're 30+, you only get a season to season contract. That's the way to do things. Don't budge on that. Pay players handsomely for what they do, and nothing for what they don't.
i dont think roma can play better season like 2 years ago when the tinker man (claudio ranieri) lost the scudetto with them in the last week ) : actually many thing has been change since they win it back in 2001 .now you need the multi millions of $ for ultra signing to compete otherwise nothing will help you
 

Rot

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Manchester City played awful last night in the second round of CL matches..... it wasn't helped by the dumbness of Carlos Tevez refusing to come on as a sub.... I believe this is one hell of a tough group.... and City may not qualify... especially after last nights performance....

Man Utd were lucky to escape with a draw.... from what looks like a relaitvely weak group... they're making it look difficult to qualify....

Chelsea and Arsenal are playing tonight....

As a Liverpool fan... i hope they lose and suffer at least 6 long term injuries each...

xROTx
 

evil wasabi

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Manchester City played awful last night in the second round of CL matches..... it wasn't helped by the dumbness of Carlos Tevez refusing to come on as a sub.... I believe this is one hell of a tough group.... and City may not qualify... especially after last nights performance....

Man Utd were lucky to escape with a draw.... from what looks like a relaitvely weak group... they're making it look difficult to qualify....

Chelsea and Arsenal are playing tonight....

As a Liverpool fan... i hope they lose and suffer at least 6 long term injuries each...

xROTx

I also like Everton. High five.
 

snkino

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Manchester City played awful last night in the second round of CL matches..... it wasn't helped by the dumbness of Carlos Tevez refusing to come on as a sub.... I believe this is one hell of a tough group.... and City may not qualify... especially after last nights performance....

Man Utd were lucky to escape with a draw.... from what looks like a relaitvely weak group... they're making it look difficult to qualify....

Chelsea and Arsenal are playing tonight....

As a Liverpool fan... i hope they lose and suffer at least 6 long term injuries each...

xROTx
1 of the first reason manchster city lost against bayern munich in the allians arena (my personal favourite stadium ever) was the champion league experience its the first time for them so they cant compete against the bayern (who usely on cl) anyway i put my money on napoli for the second card
 

evil wasabi

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1 of the first reason manchster city lost against bayern munich in the allians arena (my personal favourite stadium ever) was the champion league experience its the first time for them so they cant compete against the bayern (who usely on cl) anyway i put my money on napoli for the second card

1 of the other reasons is that Mancini is the manager. The guy isn't very good at this level.
 

Rot

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1 of the other reasons is that Mancini is the manager. The guy isn't very good at this level.

Quoted... for truth....

How can a manager spend close to £300Million over 3 years... AND still not win anything major? Mourihno at least won the Premier league with some Russian Ogliarchs money...

xROTx

PS. Everton vs Liverpool on Saturday.... I like derbys... but tbh.... I'm not a mad fanatical Everton hater... I think Moyes is a great manager... look what he has to spend ... fook all... and the guy still competes... I'd like him as the Liverpool manager if king Kenny wasn't already there...
 

evil wasabi

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Quoted... for truth....

How can a manager spend close to £300Million over 3 years... AND still not win anything major? Mourihno at least won the Premier league with some Russian Ogliarchs money...

xROTx

PS. Everton vs Liverpool on Saturday.... I like derbys... but tbh.... I'm not a mad fanatical Everton hater... I think Moyes is a great manager... look what he has to spend ... fook all... and the guy still competes... I'd like him as the Liverpool manager if king Kenny wasn't already there...

I get the feeling that old school derbies aren't as heated with the new lads as they used to be. Look at the Spurs and Gunners this weekend - it's not treated as a major rivalry anymore. Arsenal fans see liverpool and man utd as their rivals.
 

Rot

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I get the feeling that old school derbies aren't as heated with the new lads as they used to be. Look at the Spurs and Gunners this weekend - it's not treated as a major rivalry anymore. Arsenal fans see liverpool and man utd as their rivals.

Tiz True....

It's not about Cities anymore... it's all about bragging rights against teams that you hate...

Fans know best....

xROTx

PS. Everton 0 - Liverpool 2:D
 

outlaw_moon

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The Blues have disappointed me in the CL but at least we are doing good in the Premiere League.
 

Atro

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C - This is a pretty boring group. United to coast. In fact, so beneficial is this group for United that they probably won't even worry about managing league matches against the CL matches.

LOL.
 
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