It is with trepidation and hope that we go into this seasons Champions League draw, hoping to get a decent balanced draw that is representative of the pots that the teams are drawn from, i.e. one superstar team, one fallen giant, us and a team of minnows. (Although there is no such thing as minnows in the Champions League)
Here are all the teams to be included in the draw. Note the absence of Ranger's conquerors Kaunas
Pot one
Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Lyon, Inter Milan, Real Madrid
Pot two
Bayern Munich, PSV Eindhoven , Villarreal, AS Roma, FC Porto, Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon, Juventus
Pot three
Marseille , Zenit St Petersburg , Steaua Bucharest, Panathinaikos, Bordeaux , Celtic, Basel, Fenerbahce
Pot four
Shakhtar Donetsk, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, Dynamo Kiev, CFR Cluj, Aalborg
Anorthosis Famagusta, Bate Borisov
So who would you like to face in this year's competition? Personally I would like to face a group consisting of the following:
From Pot One: Real Madrid or Inter Milan
From Pot Two: Sporting Lisbon
From Pot Four: Aalborg
My first choice from Pot One would be the ultimate Club in World Football - Real Madrid. To see the Hoops take on the Galacticos at the Bernabeau Stadium in Madrid has been a dream of mine since the Champions League started. Could you imagine how good it would be to get our first away victory in the most famous Football Stadium in the World? I can but dream
From Pot Two Sporting Lisbon are arguably the weakest side although I would have no qualms about facing Werder Bremen either but I feel that Lisbon would be the easier side to play.
Pot Four has a few strange entries does it not? Google was my friend this morning when it came to finding out who the feck CFR Cluj (Romanian Champions) or Bate Borisov (from Belarus) are. So far as their footballing abilities go they are a bit of an unknown quantities so to that end I think I would rather avoid them and go for Danish Champions Aalborg.
For all of you thinking of travelling to these games here are the dates that the matches will be held.
Games will be played on the following dates:
16/17 September
30 September/1 October
21/22 October
4/5 November
25/26 November
9/10 December
It is worth noting that if you are going to be attempting to book flights to the away games that most of the discount airlines will update and increase their prices as soon as the draw is made. If you are quick and have a fast internet connection you may be able to take advantage of the cheap prices as the teams are drawn. The best way to do this is to have several different people lodged on to the travel sites before the draw. Each person logged on should select a date that a CL game will be played on BEFORE the draw starts and keep it open so that they are ready to book the flights as soon as the ball is drawn in order to secure the prices before the site mysteriously 'crashes' at the end of the draw.
You heard it here first.
Yours in Celtic
Clydebuilt