Are you all in the hat? Ready for the draw? Here we go, it’s… « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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By Walter Broeckx
So we know our opponent who will we play in the Champions League today. It’s always a bit of a tense day waiting which team we will meet in the Champions League.
Other teams don’t have to look forward to such a draw. The other team, the one that wants to move from North London, doesn’t have to look forward to a draw. As they even couldn’t qualify for the knock out stages from the Europa League. Maybe it will be reported as a major victory at White Hart Lane. I think a DVD to remember this will be launched any day now and will be available for those who want to have a laugh.
Other teams will have to wait a bit longer to know their opponents. Manchester United will have to wait till the big boys are pulled out of the hat. The big boys who still are in the Champions League that is. Beaten by the mighty Bazel… still makes me smile a bit. The most expensive team in the Europa League will be Manchester City. All that money and no more in the Champions League… well isn’t live funny sometimes?
But we are (and so is Chelsea to give credit to the other big money team in England) in the draw with the big boys for the how many times in a row? I’ve lost count a bit but someone will know the answer in the comments section I think. But we have done it again and this is something to be proud of I think.
One thing is for sure: we will not face Barcelona yet. Thanks to both of us winning our group we will not meet them now. Maybe we will meet them in Munich somewhere in May?
But who could we face? Well we could face the following teams in February : Napoli, CSKA Moscow, FC Basel, Lyon, Bayer Leverkusen, Zenit St Petersburg, AC Milan. Pick your favourite opponent I would say.
For me the best possible opponent would be Bayer Leverkusen. The only and main reason is that Leverkusen is not far away from where I live and thus would make it possible for me to ask Arsenal if we could buy tickets in behalf of the Benelux supporters club. Just a 2 hours drive from where I live. Mmmm mouth watering prospect I must say. Being able to have a game in the Champions League not far from our home is always nice. And if the people in Leverkusen are as nice as they were in Dortmund it should be fun. But Leverkusen is a difficult opponent, as all German teams are in fact.
It would be nice to meet Bazel. Just to have a look at the team who put United out of the Champions League. And it would be like rubbing salt in the wound of United if we would go further and put Bazel out of the Champions League.
The Russian teams is something that divides my mind a bit. The journey is a long one, the weather conditions in Russia in February are not that good. Ice cold weather, snow… I certainly wouldn’t want to go there at that time of the year.
But on the other hand the Russian teams are still having their winter stop at that time. In fact I think their league restarts the first weekend of March. So it will be very difficult for them to prepare the team and be match fit. This could be an advantage and I remember the teams who are playing a summer league who had been complaining a bit about those dates who don’t suit them very much. I wonder if Arshavin would like to play Zenit St. Petersburg, his former team, in the CL?
We also could be drawn against an Italian team. Napoli and AC Milan are two teams that are doing rather well in their league. AC Milan is very close to the two top teams Juventus and …Udinese. You know that team that we put out of the Champions League this season. Napoli is a bit further down the table in 5th place but ahead of Inter just to name another top team in Italy. Italian teams are always difficult to break down. They know how to defend a bit and are capable of scoring the odd goal and then park the bus.
Last possible opponent is the team that shouldn’t have been there. Lyon who scored/could score/was allowed to score 6 goals in a ridiculous half our at Zagreb.
An investigation revealed that no strange amount of money was put on that game. But the way the Lyon players were allowed a free passage over the field was very suspicious. A picture of a defender winking to a Lyon striker after one of the goals made it even more suspicious. And I really think that you don’t just have to look for gambling to know if a match was fixed or not. There are other fixes apart from gambling you know. The old fashioned agreement between players (or teams) to pay the other team to get a favourable result is something that can happen without the gambling syndicates knowing it. But nothing is proven but let me say I sure have my doubts about this result. And I think I am not alone on this.
Oh well let us for the moment enjoy that great feeling of knowing that we are in the hat to be drawn and a lot of other teams aren’t. Looking forward to it and we will face……
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