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UEFA Cup Draw

October 7th, 2008 | By: Jan | 10 Comments »

This week the UEFA cup draw was held and these are the results:

Heerenveen gets Ronaldinho and Co. AC Milan is in Heerenveen’s group, as are Wolfsburg, Sporting Praga and Portsmouth. A very tough group, both AC Milan and Portsmouth are bigger than Heerenveen and even Wolfsburg should be regarded to be stronger.

Ajax is in the same group as Aston Villa, Jol’s HSV Hamburg, Slavia Prague and Slovakian team Zilina. Slavia Prgue defeated Ajax last season for the CL qualifications. Martin O Neill’s Villa is doing very good in the EPL and HSV was the leader in Germany already. Tough tough group.

Feyenoord has to travel to Nancy again. Two seasons back this fixture ended in humungous riots in France. Makaay gets to play Deportivo, his former club, and CSKA Moscow is another club in Feyenoord’s group as is Polish side Lech Poznan. All tough opponents, but Feyenoord has a chance here…

FC Twente plays Schalke O4, coached by former Twente manager Fred Rutten. They also have Manchester City, Racing Santander and Paris SG in their group. Umbrella time!!

NEC has to play another Dinamo, this time Zagreb. Tottenham Hotspur, Spartak Moscow and Udinese are also in this group. Normally, no chance for Been and his youngters, but in Rotterdam and Bukarest they speak highly of this team….

Tags: Ajax, Been, CL and UEFA, Feyenoord, Kaka, NEC, Ronadlinho, rutten, Seedorf, Spurs, Tomasson, Verbeek

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Comments

By Caleb | October 7th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Hmm… difficult groups for the Dutch teams… some of them “beat the odds” in the qualifiers, so hopefully they can do even better in the group stage!

By ghost of steve finnan | October 7th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

Ajax, Hereenveen, and feyenoord will make it i predict.

Posted from United States

By Jan | October 7th, 2008 at 10:02 pm

Really ghost? I can see Ajax going through… Feyenoord too… Heerenveen? Mmmm…

By Carlos | October 8th, 2008 at 12:12 am

Jan ? Did you see Herenveen go thru Ajax ???

Posted from Singapore

By ghost of steve finnan | October 8th, 2008 at 11:57 am

Jan, I think Praga will finish last and Milan 1st in that group. That leaves Heerenveen, P-mouth, and Wolfsburg for 2 spots. P-mouth is overrated , having lost their midfield from last yr-the terrific Sully Muntari and also Pedro Mendes. They have gotten killed several times already this yr. Wolfsburg I dont alot about, but why not Heerenveen? They’ve been getting closer each yr, time for a small breakthrough!

Posted from United States

By goose | October 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

@ghost: Wolfsburg is a very strong team. they have invested heavily and Felex Magath (ex Bayern) is their manager, dont think Heerenveen stands a change

my predictions:

Ajax: out
Heerenveen: out
Feyenoord: next round
NEC: next round
Fc Twente: out

Posted from Netherlands

By Jason | October 8th, 2008 at 11:42 pm

if Ajax wins their home games they will get through otherwise they will crap the bed like last year.
I have a good feeling about FEYENOORD this year, they have had some bad luck in their league but will scrape by. Twente is just happy to get a look - they are done. NEC will pass and last but not least, Heerenveen - good coach, they will get by (especially if they play like they did against Ajax).

Posted from Canada

By Alex | October 9th, 2008 at 9:26 am

Heerenveen almost have a better chance of making it than Feyenoord if they Verbeek keeps having like 6 of his better players injured.
I’m not so sure about all of the clubs, although i have to say if NEC can keep this level, they have all the possibility of making it. They convinced me in the previous round. Heerenveen, Ajax, FC Twente and Feyenoord all have some strong opponents, with these draws it could go either way. Who knows, Milan hasn’t exactly performerd very convincingly in Serie A, so i wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Heerenveen snatching some points of the Rossoneri. You know, Sollied always wins something with his clubs…… UEFA Cup this time??

Posted from Netherlands

By Prabal Rakshit | October 9th, 2008 at 10:04 pm

AC Milan playing UEFA Cup?? Did they mess up so badly in Serie A that they could not qualify for Champions League?
I am sorry am pretty slow on this.

By Caleb | October 10th, 2008 at 9:09 am

Prabal - yeah, they didn’t finish in the top four in Italy last year… they had a terrible domestic campaign (even though they did pretty well in Europe) and were only able to place in 5th spot - therefore they’re in the UEFA Cup this season.

Posted from Canada

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