There Is Only One Sinnacle

Group A

Chelsea
Roma
Bordeaux
CFR Cluj

All things considered Chelsea should be happy with this group. Roma should be concerned with Bordeaux in this group. The French league runner up features some talented players in Alou Diarra, Yoan Gouffran, Fernando Cavenaghi and David Bellion. Those players could end up posing a threat to Roma chances of making the quarter finals. Romanian champions CFR Cluj should enjoy the money received from finishing 4th.

Teams to Advance

1. Chelsea
2. Bordeaux

Group B

Inter Milan
Werder Bremen
Panathinaikos
Anorthosis Famagusta

Jose Mourinho should of been all smiles yesterday. Inter and Werder are head and shoulders the class of this group. The top seed usually over look the second seed and notice who the 3rd seed is when it comes to the difficulty of the group. Panathinaikos just doesn’t match up with either Werder Bremen or Inter Milan. In what should make Michel Platini smile Anorthosis Famagusta from Cyprus make their first ever Champions League appearance. At the end of the day Mourinho was bought in to bring Champions League success to Inter. This group stage should work to Inter’s advantage.

Teams To Advance

1. Inter Milan
2. Werder Bremen

Group C

Barcelona
Sporting Lisbon
Basel
Shakhtar Donetsk

Could almost repeat the same write up as group B. Basel is not going to worry anyone. Shakhtar Donetsk might make some noise after finishing 4th last year with 6 points but were in the mix up to the final game of the group stage. They have the best chance of unseating Sporting for the 2nd spot in this group.

Teams To Advance

1. Barcelona
2. Sporting Lisbon

Group D

Liverpool
PSV Eindhoven
Marseille
Atletico Madrid

Any group that Atletico Madrid was going to be drawn into was going to get the group of death tag. None of these teams can be happy with this group. Liverpool are no sure bet to advance. PSV Eindhoven made it to the final eight two years ago. Losing to Liverpool none the less. Marseille sold Samir Nasri but replaced him with another gifted French player in Hatem Ben Arfa. No clue who will advance from this group as this will be the group to watch this fall/winter.

1. Atletico Madrid
2. PSV

Group E

Manchester United
Villarreal
Celtic
Aalborg

This group should be an interesting battle between Villarreal and Celtic. I’ve already mentioned that I see Villarreal’s form dropping this term so the main focus will be if Celtic can make it out of the group stage for the third year running. The Scottish Champions did beat Manchester United in the group stage two years ago which may work in their favour knowing they can complete with the best team in Europe.

1. Celtic
2. Manchester United

Group F

Lyon
Bayern Munich
Steaua Bucharest
Fiorentina

If it wasn’t for Group D this could of been considered the group of death. Lyon leads this group but aren’t the runaway top team with Bayern Munich who makes its return to the Champions League and Fiorentina who will have something to say about who takes spot in this wide open group.

Teams To Advance

1. Fiorentina
2. Lyon

Group G

Arsenal
Porto
Fenerbahce
Dynamo Kiev

This will come not come as a shock but I either like Porto to win this group outright or finish 3rd and get bounced by Fenerbahce who made it to the final eight last year and gave Chelsea a good run once there. Arsenal should make it out of the group but they rarely shown the form in Europe as they do in England which is why I’m not picking them to finish 1st.

Teams To Advance

1. Porto
2. Arsenal

Group H

Real Madrid
Juventus
Zenit St Petersburg
Bate Borisov

This group is as cut and dry as cut and dry gets. Juventus makes it’s Champions League return after missing out the last two years. Real Madrid and Juventus if all goes according to plan which rarely does but still both should advance. Bate Borisov will be the red headed step child of this group and Zenit St Petersburg are currently 6th in there league and seem far removed from the team that won last year’s UEFA Cup.

Teams To Advance

1. Juventus
2. Real Madrid

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 2:20 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.