ToffeeWeb - Season 2008-09

The Mail Bag

Uefa Cup Draw

Just to take my mind off the constant stress of DK, BK, DM and ANO, I thought I wefaould look at the possibilities for the Uefa Cup 1st round draw on July 27:

Marítimo, Portsmouth, Vitória Setúbal, Tottenham, Rapid Bucharest, Valencia, Dinamo Bucharest, Sevilla, Unirea Urziceni, Racing Santander, Politehnica Timisoara, Milan, Feyenoord, Sampdoria, Ajax, Udinese, Heerenveen, Nancy, NEC Nijmegen, Saint-Étienne, CSKA Moscow, Paris St-Germain, Motherwell, Hamburg, Metalist Kharkiv, Wolfsburg, Club Brugge, Borussia Dortmund, Baník Ostrava, Benfica, Kayserispor.

Some teams I have never heard of (good thing or bad thing?) and I was surprised to find Romania has 4 teams represented.

Let's hope we miss the big boys until later and get an easy passage all the way but I wouldn't mind beating Valencia on the way.

CSKA may be a different proposition this time but possibly without Arshavin, Jo and Zhirkov. Lets hope the glass is at least half-full again by then too.
Jay Harris, Liverpool Posted 16/07/2008 at 18:01:12

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Peter Bradshaw
1 Posted 17/07/2008 at 04:47:12

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Hey Jay, I dont think we need to worry about Arshavin making an effect for CSKA as he still plays for Zenit, but I would mind Metalist again, it was a good trip that one

Joey Brown
2 Posted 17/07/2008 at 05:02:28

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CSKA will have to do without Arshavin either way as he plays for Zenit.

Simon Skinner
3 Posted 17/07/2008 at 07:36:20

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We can’t actually play most of those teams, including CSKA, because we will be seeded. We will play an unseeded team, most of whom will come from the qualifying rounds of the UEFA cup. We could also play a loser from the champions league qualifiers.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/seeduc2008.html

Interestingly, we get a bye into the next round (in the form of a tie against Steve McClaren’s FC Twente)

Tony Part
4 Posted 17/07/2008 at 08:00:55

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Last 16 or quarter finals at best for us I think. What will happen if we sell our Uefa Cup top scorer from last season AJ? Seriously I cant really see us having enough quality to go as far this time around, we seemed to keep coming up short against the better sides last season even when we played Fiorentina in the first leg we let ourselves down badly and then in the 2nd leg we falied to give them the thrashing that we should have done.

Simon Skinner
5 Posted 17/07/2008 at 09:10:21

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Last season’s UEFA cup scorer AJ....that’s an interesting spin Tony. AJ scored 4 - one in the dead rubber against AZ, two in the slaughtering of Brann, and one in the game we lost anyway against Fiorentina.

If AJ hadn’t been there, what exactly would have been different?

Actually, I’ll answer my own question. If he hadn’t been there we might have had a striker who was willing to take a penalty in the shoot out. I always defended AJ, but that’s pretty much unforgivable for me.

Phil Roberts
6 Posted 17/07/2008 at 09:17:55

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http://www.toffeeweb.com/season/07-08/comment/fan/article.asp?submissionID=7553

We cannot play a seeded club and we cannot play an English club until at least the last 32 - and maybe it is even the last 16.

Andy Ellams
7 Posted 17/07/2008 at 10:45:29

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The draw for the UEFA Cup is on 29th August. We can’t play the seeded teams, can’t play the English teams and I thought FC Twente were in the Champions League.

Chris Fisher
8 Posted 17/07/2008 at 10:44:25

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Well in answer to your question Simon the difference would've been that we would've only scored once in the 2nd leg against Fiorentina and so it wouldn't of gone to extra time and penalties anyway. And we would of drawn 2-2 against AZ.

Jay Harris
9 Posted 17/07/2008 at 11:35:04

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Anybody know how Romania managed to get 4 teams in this round?

Jay Harris
10 Posted 17/07/2008 at 11:39:11

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Peter and Joey
good spot I think I’ve got Arshavin on the brain at the moment.

Simon Skinner
11 Posted 17/07/2008 at 12:11:36

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Romania just do. They are ranked 7th in Europe, which gets 4 UEFA spots and 2 Champions League spots, same as the Netherlands.

Carl Wright
12 Posted 17/07/2008 at 12:14:02

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Nice trip to Motherwell would do me. I know its not exactly travelling the road but we would take some decent numbers up there. And its a decent night out there too!!

Joey Brown
13 Posted 17/07/2008 at 14:13:19

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Don’t we all Jay, don’t we all.

Phil Guyers
14 Posted 17/07/2008 at 20:34:59

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The list provided by Jay are the teams who, like us, have definitely qualified to play in the 1st round proper of the UEFA Cup. There will be 48 other teams who will qualify, as Simon pointed out, either from earlier qualifying rounds or by dropping out of the Champions League.
Of the teams listed we can only be drawn against St. Etienne, Maritimo, Vitoria Setubal, Timisoara, Urziceni, Metalist Kharkiv, Motherwell, Wolfsburg, NEC Nijmegen, Kayserispor or Banik Ostrava. It is not yet clear whether Borussia Dortmund will be seeded or not but they look like a team to avoid so I hope they are. Bert Kassies provides full details on his brilliant site. (address provided by Simon above).