http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/5188368.stm Chelsea dealt Europe seeding blow Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool will be among the top seeds for next season's Champions League but Chelsea have again missed out. The Premiership champions will be among the second seeds despite the absence of Italian sides Juventus and AC Milan. Beaten finalists Arsenal and 2005 champions Liverpool still need to qualify to take their place among the top seeds for the group phase. Scottish champions Celtic will join Chelsea in the pot of second seeds. The Blues now face the possibility of facing reigning champions Barcelona who knocked them out of last season's competition at the first knockout phase. They missed out on a top seed in that campaign ensuring a difficult clash against the Catalans. Juventus and AC Milan are set to appeal the punishments for Italy's match-fixing scandal which ruled that they could not compete in the tournament next term. European Cup champions Barcelona Chelsea could meet current champions Barcelona in the group stages Even if their appeals are successful, the result would not affect the seedings of the British clubs. The Italian FA is expected to announce on 25 July that Roma, Chievo and Palermo will join Inter Milan in the Champions League. Should they qualify, Hearts are likely be one of the lowest seeds. Uefa splits the 32 entrants into four pots of eight teams, divided according to their current European ranking. Each group will contain one team from the top seeds, one from the second seeds, one for the third and one from the fourth. The draw for the group stages will take place on 24 August in Monaco. Top pot of seeds for Champions League according to current UEFA co-efficient: 1 Barcelona (Spa) 127.0pts, 2 Real Madrid (Spa) 120.0, 3 Inter Milan (Ita) 112.0+, 4 Liverpool (Eng) 105.9*, 5 Arsenal (Eng) 101.9*, 6 Man Utd (Eng) 100.9, 7 Valencia (Spa) 95.0*, 8 Lyon (Fra) 89.7. Second seeds: 9 Porto (Por) 87.5, 10 PSV Eindhoven (Hol) 81.6, 11 Bayern Munich (Ger) 80.9, 12 Chelsea (Eng) 79.9, 13 Roma (Ita) 76.0+, 14 Ajax (Hol) 60.6*, 15 Celtic (Sco) 60.0, 16 Lille (Fra) 54.7. Others: 40 Hearts (Sco) 20.0; 64 Cork City (Irl) 1.4, 68 Linfield (NIr) 0.77, 69 The New Saints FC (Wal) 0.77.
Now thats interesting, if we are in the round robin the second team with us would come from among Porto, PSV Eindhoven, Bayern Munich, Roma, Ajax, Celtic, or Lille.
-=- at this point, i would rue Porto, simply because the Reds were busted out by Benfica last outing. i know it's not the most objective perspective, but it's my twisted thinking, again. and also Celtic and Bayern. we know the Bhoys would so have something to prove. Bayern is scary, no matter what. plus...German food...ick!
Any of those look good for Liverpool, worst would be Bayern, but still not too bad. Off-Topic: First post on this board, hopefully il get on the Liverpool Forums a lot.
They probably backed into Juventus' and Milan's coefficient the same way they are hoping to back into a pair of scudettos from the past two seasons.
We don't play well against the Portuguese style of play, to be sure. Chav$ki being the exception, of course. It seems to suck all of the life out of our team.
I would not necessarily fancy PSV. Koeman (IIRC) is their coach and they have more talent than his Benfica team, which did the number on us last season. They are a scrapping European side to say the least. I wouldn't mind facing Celtic at all. They are a shadow of their former selves. Look at their striker corps at this point. Kenny Miller. Their backline is terrible, as well. Guys like Paul Telfer getting starts. Madness. Neil Lennon is still starting for them as well. How could we lose to a team playing Neil Lennon at the anchor midfield position if Didi Hamann does not have a place in our side anymore? Sad as it is to say (if you like Celtic), they are nothing but a glorified CCC team at this juncture in their history. I would rather face any of the last four teams in that second pot than any of the first four. To be honest, I would rather face Valencia, Lyon, Arsenal or Man Utd than Bayern or Chelsea.
Most of the time the strength of the teams from the 3rd and 4th pot determines the difficulty of the group. All that matters is that you finish in the top 2 and advance.
Not when our biggest challenges over the last few seasons have boiled down to matches against the likes of Olympiakos, Benfica and such. We have struggled more in our matches against the 3rd seeds than the higher ones, I would wager. Last season we struggled against: CSKA Sofia (home) Real Betis (home) Benfica (both legs) Season before it was: Graz (home) Deportivo (home) Olympiakos (away) At the same time, we never lost to Chelsea, Juventus, Milan, Bayer . . . We cannot exactly bank on collecting all of our points from the cannon fodder in the group stages.
-=- the lower seeds have everything to gain and less to lose when they play a 5 time cup winner. if they have the first leg on their pitch, and they manage a draw, then they can hope for a team like liverpool, that was struggling mightily to score last year, to make a mistake at home. and the group play in the CL comes during the first part of the EPL season when games are whirling by, and it's hard to field a fit squad, and setting priorities must be crazy, what with the travel and the League Cup, not that anyone cares about that competition, looming. yikes.