Suposing the teams coming from the 3rd round as favourites qualify for the group stage, what would be the hardest and the easiest group YOUR TEAM could get? If your team is not listed, pretend it is in the 4th pot. Pot 1 ................................coef. ------------------------ --- ------- Liverpool (TH) * ............Eng 115.864 Real Madrid ..................Esp 131.326 AC Milan ......................Ita 121.191 FC Barcelona ................Esp 117.326 Manchester United *** ..Eng 110.864 Internazionale *** ........Ita 101.191 Bayern München ...........Ger 97.166 Arsenal .......................Eng 93.864 Pot 2 ................................coef. ------------------------ --- ------- FC Porto ......................Por 93.739 Juventus .....................Ita 93.191 PSV Eindhoven .............Ned 84.145 Olympique Lyon ............Fra 81.324 Panathinaikos *** ........Gre 70.714 Chelsea ......................Eng 68.864 Celtic ** ....................Sco 63.476 Villarreal *** ...............Esp 58.326 Pot 3 ................................coef. ------------------------ --- ------- Sporting CP Lisbon *** ..Por 55.739 AS Monaco *** ............Fra 53.324 Ajax *** .....................Ned 52.145 9 Club Brugge *** ...........Bel 50.476 Anderlecht ** ..............Bel 47.476 Olympiakos Piraeus ........Gre 46.714 Schalke '04 ..................Ger 44.166 Sparta Praha ............... Cze 43.223 Pot 4 ................................coef. ------------------------ --- ------- Lille OSC ......................Fra 41.324 Glasgow Rangers *** .....Sco 40.476 Dinamo Kiev ** .............Ukr 40.19 Werder Bremen *** .......Ger 40.166 Lokomotiv Moscow ** ....Rus 38.469 Benfica ........................Por 36.739 Rosenborg BK *** .........Nor 36.665 Fenerbahçe ..................Tur 23.872
Easiest: Arsenal/Liverpool, Villarreal, Sparta Praha, Loko. Hardest: Milan, Chelsea, Schalke, Loko. I think if Benfica stay in Pot 4, they shall be the team to avoid. And us, of course.
The only way Benfica move out of Pot 4 is if 6 of those 15 teams from Qualifying fail to Qualify AND the teams that move into Group stage have lower coefficients than Benfica. I'd say that pretty unlikely to happen. As for the hardest & easiest, there's a few different ways to look at it, but I'm going to look at the form over the last couple seasons. UEFA uses 5 years in it's coefficents, but I'm only going to use 2. If you do it by straight average of how a team has faired over the last 2 seasons, then you get the following... Hardest: AC Milan, Chelsea, AS Monaco, Benfica Easiest: Bayern Munich, Panathinaikos, Anderlecht, Fenerbahce If you do it by a weighted average counting last year double the previous year, then you get the following... Hardest: AC Milan, Chelsea, Sporting Lisbon, Benfica Easiest: Bayern Munich, Celtic, Anderlecht, Lok. Moscow Either way you get AC Milan, Chelsea & Benfica as the strongest and Bayern Munich and Anderlecht as the weakest.
Hardest The team you have to beat, to ensure qualification for the next round. Easiest The team you have to play, after ensuring qualification for the next round.
The nightmare group for my rossoneri would be Chelsea, Schalke and Benfica. The easiest would be Celtic, Anderlecht and Lille.
you guys think schalke have a good chance? kool Hardest: Barcelona, Schalke, Chelsea, AC Milan Easiest: Lille, Anderlecht, rosenburg, Celtic
For Barcelona, Hardest group is any combination of these: From Pot 2 - Juventus/Chelsea Pot 3 - Sporting/Monaco/Schalke Pot 4 - Dinamo Kyiv/Bremen/Benfica Easiest, any combo of these would yield a boring group: Pot 2 - Panathinaikos/Celtic Pot 3 - Anderlecht/Sparta Pot 4 - Rangers/Rosenborg/Fenerbahce
Wow, thanks. Guess we are the worse of a good bunch. The draw I really want is; Milan (unfinished buisness), Barca or Man Utd in the first pot would be good. I would like to see us play Manchester United, that would be really good. In the second pot, I want Chelsea if we don't get Man Utd (for obvious reasons) Third pot, I want Monaco (revenge reasons - see Milan) or Sparta (because I want to visit Prague) And then us looking up a barrel of a cannon. I don't us to face Inter again (they will determined to avenge that drubbing we dished them out a few years back) Celtic would be a good draw to get (they are crap away from home, let alone Moscow.) But of course, we must qualify first.
I think it all depends on the way the draw is calculated. People will say Loko are one of the easiest teams. Should they play the away tie in September, then they are probably right. But playing in Moscow in December, no-one is going to like that. Ditto for Rosenborg as well.
I think pots 3 and 4 are much weaker than in years past. So you won't have a super group this year. There is nobody in the last two pots who I feel has a realistic chance of winning the title.
Oh ya. Seeing Panathinaikos slipping and sliding in Trondheim in the winter last term was funny but really clubs have it tough playing in places like that, especially ones from down south.
UEFA always makes Russian and Nordic teams play matchday 6 away. But that's not so effective because it just means that those teams play matchday 5 at home, on the last week of November. Some team has to go ice skating, anyhow.
Really? Iirc Lyon had to play in Trondheim on the last matchday a few years back... They lost and didn't qualify for next round. And we also played Brugge iirc on a ice pitch on the last match-day when Gala played Barca. But.... That could have been because Spartak were also in that year's competition and regulations required that two teams from the city couldn't play on the same match-day. Could be wrong...
Good catch - I wasn't looking at the nations at all when I was doing this... In that case by straight average, you still have... Hardest: AC Milan, Chelsea, AS Monaco, Benfica Easiest: Bayern Munich, Panathinaikos, Anderlecht, Fenerbahce But by weighted average, you'd get... Hardest: AC Milan, Chelsea, Sporting Lisbon, Dinamo Kiev Easiest: Bayern Munich, Celtic, Anderlecht, Lok. Moscow Either way you get AC Milan, Chelsea & Benfica are the strongest and Bayern Munich and Anderlecht as the weakest. Kiev only replaced Benifica in the 2nd rankings because Sporting was in from the 3rd group.
Aside from how much I disagree with what you put, the child in me, just couldn't resist making a smutty remark over this gem.
Because Arsenal has beside its points, the Manchester, Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle, etc points, while Porto has its points and Benfica, Sporting, Boavista points. If only team points would be used, Porto would be miles ahead of Arsenal.
were did Arsenal get all those points from i'm missing something cos Porto won uefa and cl and got to the 2nd or qf round last year