UEFA Cup draw, and we'll keep the groups in seeding order.
Group A AZ Alkmaar Zenit St. Petersburg Everton 1. FC Nürnberg AE Larissa
AZ is good enough to make the quarter-finals, and we can't see them missing out from this group. Below that, pick any two from four, this should be a fabulous mini-contest.
Group B Panathinaikos Lokomotiv Moscow Atlético Madrid Københaven Aberdeen
Atletico for the Intertoto Cup Wonning, surely. Panathinaikos should be good enough to progress, any of the remaining three sides could take the last spot.
Group C Villarreal AEK Athens Fiorentina Mladá Boleslav Elfsborg
On paper, this should go according to seeding, with the top three moving on without difficulty.
Group D Basle Hamburg Stade Rennais Dinamo Zagreb Brann
Basle is seeded from its strong performances in the 2005 and 2006 contests, ones that we rather forget because we were concentrating on Middlesbrough. Brann probably won't go through, any of the other sides could.
Group E Bayer Leverkusen Sparta Prague Spartak Moscow Toulouse FC Zürich
Again, it's pick three from four - we can't see Zürich making a tremendous amount of progress. This group smells like the one most likely to be decided on goal difference.
Group F Bayern München Bolton Braga Crvena Zvezda Aris Thessaloniki
Bayern must surely be the favourites for the cup, even after this difficult draw. Very difficult to pick out the remaining two to progress.
Group G Anderlecht Tottenham Getafe Hapoel Tel-Aviv AaB Aalborg
A repeat of the 1984 final between Anderlecht and Tottenham is in prospect for matchday 4 in early December. These two sides should progress, along with Getafe.
Group H Girondins Bordeaux Austria Wien Galatasaray Panionios Helsingborg IF
Austria Wien is seeded following its very fortunate progression to the quarter-finals in 2005. This looks like the group of upsets, with any of the sides capable of making the last 32.
Europe's Top XXII
Maximum RD: 120
01 BAR 1269 89.2 02 RMD 1233 87.7 03 ANL 1228 87.4 04 INT 1204 91.7 05 BAY 1200 90.2 06 MUN 1197 88.5 07 CHE 1177 89.5 08 VIL 1172 93.2 09 JVE 1170 119.8 10 ROM 1153 88 11 FIO 1151 96.9 12 VAL 1129 87.1 13 LIV 1121 87.2 14 AMD 1121 91.7 15 PTO 1117 113.8 16 ESP 1114 90 17 SEV 1112 82.1 18 LYN 1099 85.3 19 SNV 1097 86.3 20 BLK 1096 90.9 21 FEN 1091 109.3 22 SHA 1090 114.1
Seven sides from Spain, five from England, four Italians, two from Germany - though not the national champion, and one each from Portugal, France, Turkey, and Ukraine.
Top Five Averages
This is a simple arithmetic average of a country's top five clubs. Assume an RD of around 100 for this figure.
Spain 1185 England 1164 Italy 1153 Germany 1102 France 1054
Greece, the Netherlands, and Portugal will join the list, once they have five sides with sufficiently small RDs.
The Monte Carlo Model
01 Barcelona 02 Arsenal Libels 03 Bayern Munich 04 Real Madrid 05 Juventus 06 Inter Milan 07 Manchester Buccaneers 08 Fiorentina 09 Villarreal 10 Espanyol 11 Porto 12 CSKA Kensington 13 Roma 14 PSV Eindhoven 15 AZ Alkmaar 16 Valencia 17 Fenebache 18 Liverpool Stadiennes 19 Shakhtar Donetsk 20 Blackburn 21 Karlsruhr 22 Atletico Madrid
Next week's live football
Sa 1500 BBC1/EU England -v- Estonia Sa 1600 ESPT/EU Faroe Islands -v- France Sa 1715 Set1/E5 Northwich Victoria -v- Exeter City Sa 1745 S4C/EU Cyprus -v- Wales Also on BBCi, via red button Tu 1945 Set1/E5 Halifax -v- Grays We 1745 BBC2/EU Georgia -v- Scotland We 1900 BBCi/EU San Marino -v- Wales, Sweden -v- NI Th 1945 Set1/E5 Stevenage -v- Burton
