Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Quick on the draw...

As you know, I’m a Spurs fan, and today saw the draw for the group stages of the WAFER Cup.

To be honest, I feel Spurs have been placed in a tough group but it could have been a lot worse. Away to Besiktas, home to Club Brugge, away to Bayer Leverkusen and finally home to Dinamo Bucuresti isn’t the easiest of passages to the next round, but unless you are ranked amongst the top seeds you cant really expect an easy ride.

Then again, try telling that to Newcastle. They were amongst the top seeds, but they have drawn some difficult teams. Home to Celta Vigo and Fenerbache, away to Palermo and Eintracht Frankfurt. Not pleasant. Palermo, of course, beat West Ham over 2 legs in the previous round, so it will be interesting to see how Newcastle fair against them.

Rangers have a relatively straight forward task as they take on Auxerre, Partizan Belgrade, Livorno and Maccabi Haifa, and you’d have to fancy Blackburn’s chances too, as they will take on Feyenoord, Basle, Wisla Krakow and some girl named Nancy.

GROUP A
Auxerre
RANGERS
P Belgrade
Livorno
Maccabi Haifa

GROUP B
Bayer Leverkusen
Club Brugge
Besiktas
Dinamo Bucharest
TOTTENHAM

GROUP C
Sevilla
AZ Alkmaar
Slovan Liberec
Grasshopper
Braga

GROUP D
Parma
Lens
Heerenveen
Osasuna
Odense

GROUP E
Feyenoord
Basle
Wisla Krakow
BLACKBURN
Nancy

GROUP F
Ajax
Sparta Prague
Espanyol
Austria Wien
Zulte Waregem

GROUP G
Panathinaikos
Paris St Germain
Rapid Bucharest
Hapoel Tel Aviv
Mlada Boleslav

GROUP H
NEWCASTLE
Celta Vigo
Palermo
Fenerbahce
Eintracht Frankfurt

The group stage runs from 19 October to 14 December before the competition closes down until 14 February, when the knockout phase begins.

Top 3 teams from each group qualify for the next round.

4 comments:

Kedge said...

Being a fan of Nancy must be a bit stressfull. Imagine standing on the terraces, surrounded by big burley Geordies and having to chant "We are the Nancy Boys!".

Smart said...

I thought you'd be used to that, being a regular to Roots Hall ;-)

Chris O said...

I'm wondering if Rangers will get through to Round 2 this time. They've always had a tough time in the Champions League, but their group looks like the best of a bad bunch.

Smart said...

I think Blackburn and Rangers must be favourites to qualify from there groups. I'd be very suprised if they didnt.

Newcastle have a tough task, but again I expect them to make it.

Dinamo Bucersti (in Tottenham Hotspur's group) currently sit top of their league - played ten games, won ten - although I'm assured the strength of the league is nothing like the Premiership, and more like the Scottish Premiership.

Winning both of your home games is key to all teams in this group stage.

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