Champions League Groups Revealed

As always with these draws, it took an hour to reveal something that should take no more than ten minutes to, but hey, anything to kill time and add unnecessary pageantry, right? However, the bottom line is we (eventually) got there and the 8 groups are determined.

Group A
Inter Milan
Werder Bremen
Tottenham Hotspur
FC Twente

Group B
Lyon
Benfica
Schalke 04
Hapoel Tel Aviv

Group C
Manchester United
Valencia
Rangers
Bursapor

Group D
Barcelona
Panithanikos
FC Copenhagen
Rubin Kazan

Group E
Bayern Munich
AS Roma
FC Basel
CFL Cluj

Group F
Chelsea
Marseille
Spartak Moscow
MSK Zilina

Group G
AC Milan
Real Madrid
Ajax
Auxerre

Group H
Arsenal
Shaktar Donesk
SC Braga
FK Partisan

Group G, featuring AC Milan, Real Madrid, Ajax, and Auxerre is clearly the Group of Death. That being said, the Group D matches between Manchester United and Rangers could possibly feature a group of deaths. I wish I could take credit for that joke, but sadly, I can't.

As far as my teams go, both Chelsea and Barcelona got very favorable draws. Each of Chelsea's opponents were ranked in the bottom 2 of their respective pot and 2 out of 3 opponents for Barcelona were ranked there as well, with the only exception being Pot 4's Rubin Kazan of Russia. Both Chelsea and Barcelona have opposition in Russia and may even end up having to there in very cold weather, which may not necessarily bode well, especially for Barcelona, but given that Spartak Moscow and Rubin Kazan do not match up with the quality of Barcelona and Chelsea, there is no reason why Chelsea should not be able to easily defeat Spartak Moscow at Stamford Bridge and no reason for FCB to not defeat Rubin Kazan at Camp Nou. Both teams should come in 1st place in their respective group with ease.

Because there is more coverage of them and the EPL in the U.S. and SB Nation has a fine blog for them, if push comes to shove, I want Chelsea to win over Barcelona. That being said, watching Champions League games will not be easy as once I move back to college in the next 48 hours, as I will be without Fox Soccer Channel, so I will be forced to hope that UEFA does not take down the illegally available online streams. If anyone knows any sites that legally stream Champions League games for free and is available in the United States, please let me know what they are as it will save an incredible headache for me. Thanks!

Once the full group stage schedule is known, I will make a post similar to what I did for the World Cup.