Posted on 08/30/2012 10:51:19 AM PDT by Peter Vollmer
Draw for the 2012-13 Champions League group stage, held in Monaco on Thursday:
Group A Porto Dynamo Kiev Paris St Germain Dinamo Zagreb
Group B Arsenal Schalke 04 Olympiakos Piraeus Montpellier HSC
Group C AC Milan Zenit St Petersburg Anderlecht Malaga
Group D Real Madrid Manchester City Ajax Amsterdam Borussia Dortmund
Group E Chelsea Shakhtar Donetsk Juventus Nordsjaelland
Group F Bayern Munich Valencia Lille BATE Borisov
Group G Barcelona Benfica Spartak Moscow Celtic
Group H Manchester United Braga Galatasaray CFR Cluj
(Excerpt) Read more at in.reuters.com ...
Real Madrid - Manchester City should be a couple of crackers.
And don’t overlook Dortmund, they’ve won the Bundesliga the last two years. That’s a tough group.
Who did Man U bribe?
Not a good day for Ajax.
Unfortunately, with 2 teams advancing from each group, some of the games don't live up to the hype, in my experience.
Yep. But I can remember, not too long ago, when we would have been saying, “Not a good day for Man City/Real/Dortmund”.
Not impressed so far with City’s defense...they didn’t do very well last year in the CL. Then again Dortmund was also a disappointment....CL form doesn’t always hold to league form, as we found out last year with Chelsea.
I just hope this time next year, we’ll see Everton on that list. (So far, so good)
It’s Group D’s turn to be the group of death.
It was pretty clear that DiMatteo decided that trying to win the FA Cup and the Champion's League was more reasonable than trying to claw their way back into the EPL fight. I'd not look forward to playing them in any competition right now -- Torres looks to be in form and Hazard has been a smashing transfer success so far. Defense is a little suspect, but they haven't played any back-to-the-wall games yet to see if they can repeat last year's defensive performances.
Yeah, I would say Chelsea is the team to beat...Arsenal can’t score, City’s defense is suspect, United may drop too many points early to be able to catch up, and Liverpool is a year or two away from seriously contending again.
And as I alluded, watch out for Everton, they have looked fantastic so far, Fellaini has been a beast.
Bravo for CFR Cluj. They have no chance, but they’re a scrappy little side that’ll put on a good show. The group’ll be United and Braga, though.
Bravo for CFR Cluj. They have no chance, but they’re a scrappy little side that’ll put on a good show. The group’ll be United and Braga, though.
APOEL Nicosia did make it to the Final 8 last year, so it’s possible for one of the smaller clubs to make some noise.
And City flames out!
Real Madrid - Galatasaray
Barcelona - Paris St.-German
Bayern Munich- Juventus
Dortmund - Malaga
I like:
Real Madrid,
Barcelona (Ibrahimovic is out of the first leg, otherwise I would think PSG had a chance to pull off the upset)
Bayern and Juventus, that's a tough draw for Bayern. They'd better play better than they did the other day against Arsenal if they want to beat Juve....IMHO the winner of this tie, wins the whole thing.
And Dortmund should beat Malaga. Personally, I am rooting for Dortmund because of Lewandowski and Błaszczykowski.
Dortmund lucked out.
Today I got David Beckham eau de toilette. That might mean something, like an omen.
The Semifinals draw:
Bayern Munich v Barcelona
Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid
I was kind of hoping the draw would have pitted Barcelona vs Real Madrid, so we could have gotten two games between them at each’s stadium...now if they meet it would only be one game on a neutral site.
But still, I think it’s Bayern’s title to lose.
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