All Things Footie | Thursday, August 23 | Jordan
The ITV Sport Treasure Chest
The gropus for this seasons Champions League have been drawn and with no further ado;
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The opening games for the home nations clubs are -
September 11th Liverpool vs Boavista and Real Mallorca vs Arsenal
September 12th Celtic vs Rosenborg and Olympiakos vs Manchester United
It should be a good draw and the Champions League is clearly getting stronger every year - you can understand why the format had to be expanded. How many teams haven't you ever seen play in the last couple of years? I can only think of Lille. Real Madrid and Roma in one group, Juventus and Celtic - but the group that catches my eye the most is Lazio, Galatasaray and PSV (Nantes are no slouches either).
Of the home nations Liverpool seem to have the easiest group - with Kiev a nasty away trip (they should compensate with a win at home though), Dortmund don't look that impressive and unless Boavista are vastly better than the Porto side that Liverpool played in the UEFA cup last season - there should be no problems seeing them off. I don't fancy being an Anderlecht supporter though, they might (if they're lucky) get three or four points out of their 6 games. I'm looking forward to Spartak Moscow - Sparta Prague too, should be a belter.