Porto, Atletico and Nicosia: reaction to Chelsea's Champions League draw

Yesterday’s Champions League draw was a typically UEFA affair: overly long, self-congratulatory, over attended and somewhat vacuous. But we did find out who Chelsea will face in the group stages of the Champions League – Porto, Atletico Madrid and APOEL Nicosia.

Well, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. The media seem to be fairly convinced that Chelsea will progress to the knockout stages with ease but, whilst I think we’ll certainly qualify, I can’t see it being as straightforward as they make out.

Atletico are a good side going forward (turns out we will get to see Aguero at the Bridge after all) but are perhaps a little shaky at the back - they didn’t look too impressive when they played Arsenal in the pre-season Emirates Cup. We’ve met Porto twice in the last four years in the Champions League since they won it in 2004 and they’re obviously very familiar with the competition. That said, they’ve recently lost key players like Lopez and Gonzalez, and shouldn’t present the same threat as in previous years.

But what of the relatively unknown APOEL Nicosia? Like most, I know next to nothing about them. I can tell you however that this is the first time they have qualified for the Champions League proper (having put out EB Streymur, FK Partizan and FC Copenhagen en route), they play in bright yellow and were the first club in Cyprus to rack up 20 league wins. I’ll wait to see them play before I say anymore – but you can take nothing for granted in the Champions League and we can’t rule them out being this year’s FC Cluj. Saying that, it might be useful that our last group game will see Cypriots come to Stamford Bridge.

Most importantly, Chelsea avoided Europe’s big guns – Real, Milan etc., and the other English clubs had the same luck. Liverpool face tricky but probably beatable opponents in Lyon and Fiorentina, and can already chalk up six points having also been drawn against Debrecen. Arsenal were handed their annual bye to the knockout stages (having been grouped with AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos and Standard Liege) whilst Man Utd will travel the length and breadth of Europe when they meet CSKA Moscow and Besiktas. Utd’s ties against German champions Wolfsburg, led by their in-demand striker Dzeko, could be far more interesting.

There are interesting groups elsewhere. Barcelona may have been fortunate to have drawn Rubin Kazan, but drawing Inter was considerably less lucky (it will be great to see Ibrahimovic and Eto’o come up against their former clubs) and Dinamo Kiev away could be a tough encounter. Group C probably has the most potential for great games however, with AC Milan and Real Madrid being joined by Marseille and FC Zurich.

Plenty to look forward to. Here’s to another successful Champions League campaign, but I have just one request: can we not play Liverpool this year please?

Chelsea’s group stage fixtures:
Tuesday 15^th September: FC Porto, home
Wednesday 30^th September: APOEL Nicosia, away
Wednesday 21^st October: Atletico Madrid, home
Tuesday 3^rd November: Atletico Madrid, away
Wednesday 25^th November: Porto, away
Tuesday 8^th December: APOEL Nicosia, home

What do you think of the draw? Post a comment…

Comments

[JBH]

Im a dane who watched APOEL in both their matches against FC Copenhagen.

To be honest, they are a very very weak side. Their attack is their main force, and when they play to their very best, they have some flair and creativity.
Their defense however, is extremely vulnerable. They are heavy and clumbsy, and poorly organised. This makes them vulnerable to set pieces and through balls.
They do have an impressing home crowd. Not Fenerbahce-impressing, but still great.

Beating FC Copenhagen and Partizan is indeed impressing. I dont know what happend i Serbia, but the danish media describes the exit of FCK as possibly the biggest scadal to danish club-football i recent history.

I would be more scared of meeting Crystal Palace than this side, and im not kidding. They are really really awful.

[Russell Saunders]

JBH - thanks very much for the post and welcome to the blog!

Great to have some first hand insight! Also good to hear that we may at least have a couple of easier games. I'd heard that APOEL do have good away support - with the good weather over there, it could maybe be a good away day...

So what happened in the Copenhagen games?

[Mike]

I just read what JBH said about the FCK match against the cypriots and i think that he was propably watching a different match or he just talk as a FCK fan. Well im an Aalborg & Chelsea fan and frankly speaking the cypriot side could score whenever they want during the second leg. They scored their 3rd goal at 40' and then they were mostly defending. BUT they did that succesfully and that's the reason why FCK didn't make it too score a goal in the rest 50' to qualify. So how r their defence vulnerable? FCK just scored 2 goals in 180' against them and on previous round partizan scored only 1. Anw, speaking as a Chelsea fan now, im sure that we ll get them, but i won't be surprized if they grap few points from porto.