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Reinforcement have arrived (24/08/2006 20:23) | ||||||||||||||||
Champions league
Earlier today the Champion League group stage got drawn without Juventus as participating team. To make the group stage draw in Champions League all the teams are divided into 4 different levels. To make a group there will be drawn 1 team from each level to the same Group. So this basically means that you can't mean any teams that are ranked on the same level as your own team. Here's a list of how the groups looks like after the draw was done.
Group A: Last season champions Barcelona and Chelsea are clearly the favourites in my opinion to go through from this group. Werder Bremen is a good outsider that can become a surprise in the 1/8 finals. Levski Sofia is also a quite strong team and hard to beat at their home field. Group B: Inter and Bayern Munchen is my favourites to go through to the next stage of the tournament in this group, although neither Sporting Lisboa or Spartak Moskva are going to give up without a fight. Getting full pots at home will can become vital for both Inter and Bayern munchen. Group C: A fairly even group with Liverpool a lightly head in front of the other teams. PSV Eindhoven also have a strong side but never excellerating in eruopean tournaments. Bordeaux aint famous for their big battles in Europe either and is from my eye the worst team in the group. Galatasaray is, with Hakan Sukur on the team, my secon favourite to go through from this group together with Liverpool. Group D: This is probably the hardest group of them all this season where all the teams gotta rely on getting their points at home and hopefully get a win or some draws away. The teams to fulfill both these requests will go through from this group. Valencia and Roma as the favourites to do so, but Olympiakos with Rivaldo and Co wont bend over before they're out of the tournament. Shaktar Donetsk will do their best to make the other teams suffer and maybe we'll see a few acrobathic celebrations, that's if Julius Aghahowa are getting some goals in this group. Groupd E: Real Madrid and Lyon are big favourites, but the team from Ukraine (Dynamo Kiev) have yet again been able to get out a pretty strong side with their home coming son, Sergey Reborv playing for the team again. Last time that happend he was a part of one of the deadliest striker partnerships in Europe when he played together with Shevchenko back in the 90's. Staua Bucuresti will also make their trademarks when playing at their homefield. Group F: Manchester United are the big, big favourites in this group, while Celtic and Benfica will battle out for the second place. FC Copenhagen will be the big outsiders with nothing to lose. They're known for their hard work and never giving up a match before the refree blow his whistle for the last time in the match. My bet will go on Benfica to follow Manchester United to the 1/8 finals. Group G: Arsenal sail out to be big favourites to win the group, but the likes of Porto and Hamburg wont make it all to easy for them. They're both great respected teams in Europe and will make it hard for Arsenal to even get their victory home on their new stadium. CSKA Moskwa have also made their way to the champions league as the usually do. Group H: This is probably the group with the biggest favourite to get past the group stage. Milan have, on paper, what would be seen as the easiest group this season although all the other three teams are well respected teams in their home country they're getting a couple of numbers to small when facing Milan. It's hard to predict a runnerup in this group, but i would have to go for AEK. So that was a little walkthrough on what you could expect from this autumn. I'll get back with more prediction round by round for this tournament later on. My teams
Viking FK: As you maybe remember from my last blog entry they aint doing to well this season and they haven't gotten any better yet. At least not in front of goal. Last weekend they played home against Rosenborg in the Cup. In the first half they outplayed Rosenborg with every single note in the books. They came around on the wings, they managed to get throughballs in the middle, closing down on the opponents half making them lose the ball and muc much more. They actually created 5 big chances in the first half and Rosenborg only created 1, BUT! Rosenborg scored on their only chance and were leading 1-0 at half time. In the second half they were more even and created 3 good scoring chances each. Rosenborg scored twice, while Viking only scored 1 and ended up losing 3-1 so they're now out of the cup as well as second to last in the league. Hopefully the can keep up the good work on the field and the scoring will come eventually, at least that's what i hope on. Last match: Viking Rosenborg 1-3 (cup) Next match: Viking - Vålerenga (league) Sun 27/8 17:00 GMT Newcastle United: Glenn Roeder have finally managed to snatch up the player he think can fulfille the gaps after the retirement of old skipper alan Shearer. To do so he had to look to Italy and Inter Milan where he found the 22 year old Nigerian national player, Obafemi Martins. A powerful, very quick and talented player. Together with Ameobi on the top i think this can become one of the deadliest striker partnerships in Premier League this season. This is the big signing he have been looking for all season. he have also tried to get Dirk Kuyt, but never placed a bid on him even when Liverpool snatched him up. Maybe he even got a couple of more trumph cards up his sleeve before the transfer deadline is over. If he does i sure hope it's a defender that's kinda simulare to Jonathan Woodgate. At least a lad that open his mouth and guides his fellow defenders to the best position. They truly needs that to become one of the top 5 clubs in England again. Last match: Newcastle - Wigan 2-1 (league) Next match: Newcastle - Ventspils (UEFA Cup) Thu 24/8 19:45 GMT Cheltenham: After getting a terrific start to the season and beating both swansea away and Tranmere at home they suffer 2 defeats in the hands of Port Vale (0-1) at home and Bournemouth (1-2) away. Else there's mostly good news as midfielder Mickey Bell played 60 minuted for the reserves and seem to be recovering pretty good from his injury and the 2-1 win home against Bristol City in the Carling Cup first round. the second round draw will be made on saturday. Last match: Cheltenham - Bristol City 2-1 (Carling Cup) Next match: Cheltenham - Millwall (league) Sat. 26/8 15:00 GMT | ||||||||||||||||
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