Ok the groups are made: http://www.uefa.com/Competitions/UCL/index.html Group A: Barcalona Chelsea Werder Bremen Levski sovia Group B: Inter milan bayern Munich Sporting Spartak Moskva Group C: Liverpool PSV Bordeaux Galatasaray Group D Valencia Roma Olympiacos Shaktar Group E Real Madrid Lyon Steaua Dynamo kyiv Group F Manchester United Celtic benfica Kobenhavn Group G Arsenal Porto CSKA Moskva Hamburg Group H AC Milan Lile AEK Athene Anderlecht I thought this could be a good thread to discuss the Champions league. Otherwise the Thread about the Premier League of Univac Hal would be derailed after the champions league games. What our the predictions. I love the fact that Barca And chelsea play each other in the groups. And i like the group PSV are in. I think C and F are the most easy groups, And maybe H. I'm looking forward to the games. The first games will be played on 12 and 13 september.
I'm of the opinion that there's no such thing as an easy CL group.. but man, Group H is the closest we've got this year. For Milan, that is. And to think they weren't even supposed to be in the competition with their initial points deduction.. I hope karma gets them good
3 years of Barca/Chelsea....hmm....and this lottery is totally random, yes? Well at least this time they won't knock each other out, just yet, possibly, maybe. Hopefully Manchester United can score some goals this time.
Wow, AC Milan is really getting punished badly for match fixing - a walkover group to the knockout stage, wow that's tough! I bet they're really feeling it! So - wait, Chelseas lackluster CL performance last year allegedly means it gets stuck with FCB and Bremen the group stage, yet Man U's even worse CL performance last year gets them stuck with powerhouses like Copenhagen and Celtic? I'm sure Sir Alex is quaking in his boots.
well copenhagen did knock out a decent ajax side featuring Klas Jan Huntelaar firing on all cylinders. Plus Benfica's in our group. I have nightmares about our horrendous outing in last seasons group stage especially the final match vs benfica. it'll be a decently tough group.
Copenhagen is not a good team, Ajax failed unbelievably. They should have won both games. Copenhagen played defense and Ajax just failed to score. I think Milan will have no problems with Copenhagen.
The teams in each group play each other twice (home & away), the top two teams advance to a knockout stage where they play a home & away series against each other with the best team advancing. Last year ESPN and Setanta showed the games, I'm not sure if that has changed any. Here's the schedule for the game days. Matchday 1 - 12 & 13 September 2006 Matchday 2 - 26 & 27 September 2006 Matchday 3 - 17 & 18 October 2006 Matchday 4 - 31 Oct & 01 Nov 2006 Matchday 5 - 21 & 22 November 2006 Matchday 6 - 05 & 06 December 2006 First knockout round - 20 Feb & 07 Mar 2007 Quarter-finals - 03 & 11 April 2007 Semi-finals - 24 Apr & 02 May 2007 Final 23 May 2007
How did they get picked for each group? Is it the champion from each league? They should be leaders of each group, I think. That would be fair, no?
They get seeded in four groups and I think it is listed in order the way arno_ed did it. So Manchester United was a #1 seed and Chelsea only a #2 seed. Gotta love it. (And yes there is a reason for it - it is based on CL play for a few years back, not exactly sure how many, but in the formula used I guess this is what the seedings came out to.)
It's basically a ranking based on the performance of the teams during the last 5 european competitions. The better you did, the more chance you have to be a #1 seed.
So they will not be playing in their own leagues then (like EPL, Spanish league etcc...), it will just be champions league games?
Either one or two (one weekend, one midweek), in a few rare instances a team will end up with two games at one time and will have to split the team up to play in both of them.
