2010-11 UEFA Champions League Draw

The draw for the group stage of the 2010-2011 UEFA Champions League was held earlier today at Monaco and it threw up some really delicious ties for Europe’s top club prize. 32 clubs were split into eight groups of four teams, who’ll play each other home and away between September and December to decide which two teams from each group advance to the first knockout round.

• Group A: Tottenham, Inter Milan, Werder Bremen, FC Twente
• Group B: Benfica, Lyon, Schalke, Hapoel Tel-Aviv
• Group C: Manchester United, Rangers, Valencia, Bursaspor
• Group D: Barcelona, Rubin Kazan, FC Copenhagen, Panathinakos
• Group E: Bayern Munich, AS Roma, Basel, CFR Cluj
• Group F: Chelsea, Marseille, Spartak Moscow, Zilina
• Group G: Real Madrid, AC Milan, Ajax, Auxerre
• Group H: Arsenal, Shakhtar Donetsk, Partizan Belgrade, Braga

Champions Inter Milan have newcomers Tottenham, Dutch champions FC Twente and Germany’s Werder Bremen alongside them with last year’s runners up Bayern Munich in Group E alongside AS Roma, Basel & CFR Cluj.

Among the other English teams, Arsenal have potentially the easiest group as they’re bunched with Shakhtar Donetsk, Partizan Belgrade and Braga in group H. Premier League champs Chelsea were drawn alongside Marseille, Spartak Moscow and Zilina. Manchester United will face a tricky tie against SPL Champions Rangers with Valencia and Bursaspor the other teams in group C.

As is the case always, there’s the ubiquitous group of death and it is group G, with Real Madrid, Ajax, AC Milan and Auxerre grouped together innit!

The action kicks off on the 14th of September.

More: Replay of the draw | UEFA Report | BBC Sport Report

It’s Internazionale Vs. Bayern München

Vs.

Inter Milan were down to ten men (we’ll come back to that later), fought manfully, defended for their lives with striker Samuel Et’oo even playing at left back and ended up losers on the night but they beat the current European Champions Barcelona over two legs to book their place in this year’s Champions League final, where they will take on Bayern Munich for the biggest prize in European Football.

The match against Barcelona was touted as Jose Mourinho’s biggest challenge and he came up trumps again, as he did a week ago at Milan. Yeah they lost the match 1-0 but came out 3-2 winners in the tie and that’s as much down to the manager’s tactical brilliance as it was to the players. Walter Samuel, Lucio, Javier Zanetti, Maicon, Esteban Cambiasso et al put in stellar defensive purposes and stifled Barcelona so much that towards the end they had to resort to long balls and crosses in search of the elusive goal.

The match would’ve been a different affair altogether if it weren’t for the theatrics of Barca midfielder Sergio Busquets, whose dramatic antics after being touched on the face by Inter’s Thiago Motta (who was already on a yellow) and probably the crowd & Barca players’ reactions, conned/convinced the referee into showing a straight Red. Down to ten men with more than an hour to go, Inter downed gears and played as defensively as they could. Though that made the match less interesting, it offered an insight into how Barca would cope up with overtly defensive play – and the answer is: not good. Theyc ould only muster a total of 4-5 shots on-goal even though possession was 75% in their favour! Messi was subdued for the most part but the colossal-est disappointment of the night for me was Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who apart from changing his torn jersey, did little.

Hats off to the Inter side and now they must be favourites to win the big prize, come May 22nd. Of course, Bayern are no slouch and in Louis Van Gaal, possess a shrewd and experienced manager who might just manage to outwit Jose in the big match. We’ll all see in a little over three weeks’ time.

More: UEFA Match Report | BBC Sport Match Report

Manchester United it is!!!

Yes!!!

Yes!!!

Yes!!!

It is Manchester United!!!

Manchester United win the UEFA Champions League!!!

Manchester United beat Chelsea 6-5 on Penalties; after 120 Minutes of exhilarating football produced only a 1-1 draw.

Scored for Manchester United: Carlos Tevez, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves, Ryan Giggs, Nani, Anderson
Missed for Manchester United: Christiano Ronaldo (saved by Petr Cech)

Scored for Chelsea: Michael Ballack, Juliano Belletti, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, Salomon Kalou
Missed for Chelsea: John Terry (blasted wide), Nicholas Anelka (saved by Edwin Van der Sar)

Ahhh! If you’ll now excuse me, I gotta get some sleep (hopefully)!

UCL Final – Manchester United Vs. Chelsea – who will win?

I Say Manchester United

[Update: And it IS Manchester United]

The match has kicked off at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium even as I write this. Man U are playing with Rooney and Tevez up front with Ronaldo out on the flank. Chelsea employ Drogba up front with Cole and Malouda for support. Both teams have their best 11 on the field. Let’s see who play more together as a team.

Also read: Manchester United Retain EPL