Champions League 2009-10: Group draw

After the last qualifiers have been played, UEFA today made the draw for this season's 2009-10 Champions League. These are as follows:

Group A:

• Bayern Munich
• Juventus
• Bordeaux
• Maccabi Haifa

Group B:

• Manchester United
• CSKA Moscow
• Besiktas
• Wolfsburg

Group C:

• AC Milan
• Real Madrid
• Olympique Marseille
• FC Zurich

Groupd D:

• Chelsea
• FC Porto
• Atlético Madrid
• Apoel Nicosia

Group E:

• Liverpool
• Olympique Lyon
• Fiorentina
• Debrecen

Group F:

• FC Barcelona
• Inter Milan
• Dynamo Kiev
• Rubin Kazan

Group G:

• Sevilla
• Glasgow Rangers
• VfB Stuttgart
• Unirea Urziceni

Group H:

• Arsenal
• AZ Alkmaar
• Olympiakos
• Standard Liege

There are clearly some very interesting matches, and most people have already noticed the Spanish-Italian encounters in the form of Real Madrid-AC Milan and FC Barcelona-Inter Milan, where some rather prominent new players will be playing against their former teams.

Bayern Munich-Juventus, Olympique Lyon-Liverpool, and Chelsea-FC Porto are all quasi-classical encounters in the Champions League (where Lyon and Chelsea are the only team that has not won the CL!). Some other teams that will be very interesting to follow are Dynamo Kiev, Rubin Kazan (the Russian champions, who will be making their first CL appearance ever), Wolfsburg (the German champions, who will also be making their first appearance ever), and Olympique Marseille, the ex-champions and new French champions.

Arsenal and Manchester United both seem to have gotten quite easy draws, but of course, in this Champions League there are no easy teams... Or are there...? It will be be interesting to see whether this new format, with more teams from "small" countries, will be succesful, or if teams such as Apoel Nicosia, Debrecen and Maccabi Haifa will just be in it for the experience!

But anyway, I cannot wait for the Champions League to start on September 15th!