lose away to madrid 2-1, draw at home 1-1

I'm liking the group and the challenge, i think we can get second easily maybe first

No real 'group of death' IMO though it can be said we got one of the 2 or 3 toughest groups.

Amen to that

it's mainly down to the fact we drew real as a 2nd pot when they much stronger, and marseille are no pushovers.

Fishdoll momentarily amused. Little Daniel Maldini in the second row looks bored out of his skull.

He needs to go back to slide tackling the ball away from Seedorf.

i love everyone's optimism here. we have to seriously hope the real experiment doesn't work. and we have to hope our guys are injury free and 100% up for the job.

we'll see. we'll do good, but it's going to be tough.

Don't take Marseille lightly... they've spent more money than us this summer (which isn't hard)

back in the days ... ronaldinho beated real madrid with Ronaldo ( Brazilian ) and Zidane .... nowdays real madrid has kaka<zidane ... and c.ronaldo<ronaldo .... but ronaldinho nowdays < ronaldinho back in the days ... but if he gets 90% of his old magic ( actually i think he has now 70% of it ) we can crash real madrid ... and of course if the whole team is in good shape too !!! :D:D:D :D:D:D

if we beat them expect fiorentino to sign ronnie and berlu will tell us all how old ronnie has gotten

its going to be weird seeing kaka play against us at the san siro maybe he will go easy on us lol we can make it out of this group weve had worst. we can def beat Marseille and zurich. and maybe draw 1-1 with madrid idk we will see

Marseille play inspired football and zurich might get blinded by the big lights at the San Siro

The toughest group, it's gonna be a real test playing in it. For some reason, I am not confident, when looking at the teams in our group, then looking at us from our bench to our coach, it feels as if the team is toothless

not the easiest of group for Milan but we should get two second round

We played them last season in the UEFA Cup, Sheva scored in Zurich IIRC

how do u guys think we'll do against marseille im thinking a 1 or 2-0 home win and hopefully 1-1 draw away we beat zurich last season in uefa cup so not worried bout them but against madrid we might get our *** kicked lol who knows but it feels good to be back in the best Competition

Absolutely brutal draw which we will struggle with. Real Madrid will either be exceptional this season, or indifferent - we have to hope we get the indifferent one. Marseille are a quality team and won't be pushovers by any means, and Zurich are one of the better Pot 4 teams.

I'm pleased in a sense that I think we can qualify, and we get a glamour group, but it won't be easy.

I am also very pleased Rangers and Milan didn't get each other, and play on separate match days

(from acmilan.com)

Here are Milan's matchdays:

martedì 15 Settembre: Olympique Marsiglia-Milan;
mercoledì 30 Settembre: Milan-Zurigo;
mercoledì 21 Ottobre: Real Madrid-Milan;
martedì 3 Novembre: Milan-Real Madrid;
mercoledì 25 Novembre: Milan-Olympique Marsiglia;
martedì 8 Dicembre: Zurigo-Milan.

madrid back to back...don't know if that's good or bad

i still can't believe group g...what an absolute waste of a perfectly good group

What's this supposed to mean?

PAOLO was honored as he deserved and I'll see Ricky at the San Siro again!!!

OH GOD !!! I can't wait until the start of the champions league ... and im so sad i wouldn't have the chance to watch the derby because im travelling by bus (poulmen) from country to country i don't know if i will have the chance to watch the game !!

by far the weakest group in the CL. irritating how sometimes the groups are not spread out evenly.

Which is good, in my opinion. I think seeding is a joke anyway, good teams shouldn't be kept apart just so UEFA can make more money on high profiled matches in the knockout stages. But even with this, at least there is some interest when the draws come out in this way, some teams get the luck, others don't. Most of the teams are lucky to be in it, I still don't agree that anyone but the League Champions + holders should be in.

We'll see Pato and Ronnie vs. Kaka and Ronaldo... Pretty tough, huh ?

I agree. Maybe I would let league runner-ups in it too.

The big games of the group are usually played back to back, we had Bayern in 03, Barca in 05, PSV in 06. I'm hoping for an away draw against Real and shading it at home.

We'll see how Real will be playing by then. They had a very good pre-season, but apart from Juve and Stuttgard they only played weak teams. And they lost one of those hard matches so we'll see how they'll get on in the competitve matches.

Marseille are another big question mark for me, as I think they will be really tough to beat. And Zurich are no pushovers and would have prefered an easier team from pot 4 Wulfsborg and Zurich were the ones I wanted to avoid and we got Zurich. Our group is imo, the toughest, Inter have Barca but other then that its pretty straight forward. All the English teams except for Liverpool have practically already been given a plave in the knock outs as they have easy groups, especially Man U and Arsenal

Madrid are through. The real competition is whether or not marseille can take our spot.

Just because you consider it a weaker group doesn't make it a waste of one. I'm absolutely delighted with it.

Because all the teams on it are on the same level playing field as Rangers, while you have other groups that have both Milan and Real in it, and another with Barca and Inter, and Juve and Bayern in another.

The pots this year were enough to make this the strongest CL to date - hell there's teams in Pot 3 who are former pot 1 teams. Pots 1-3 were absolutely brutal.

The fact group G is weaker means each side in it (one in particular ) has a good chance of progression. I cannot see how that's a bad thing.

Out of Group G Sevilla are the strongest and I think they will get first, Stuttgart are no joke either, and second will be between them and Rangers.

I'm with Warchant on this one, there is no big team in that group, while you have 2 big clubs in 3 of the groups.

I agree with you. I wouldn't mind seeing a smaller side make it through. Besides clashes between the titans is what CL is all about so having them in the group stage makes the competition even better

Eduardo has been banned for 2 European games after UEFA decided to punish his dive. I'd started to warm up to Wenger a little, but his outburst in defending Eduardo is a disgrace. How he can condone this is ridiculous.

My personal opinion is 5 game bans. Players will think twice about diving during a game, even if it means winning the game for their team, because they could easily receive a huge ban afterwards when the replays have been watched by UEFA.

I do not disagree.

You want to know what is a disgrace? Diving has been going on in the CL for decades, and now UEFA suddenly decides to punish the diver, completely out of the blue. Was Babel banned for his dive against us two seasons ago that cost us a place in the semi's? Or Jose Mari for his in the 2006 semi? Or Gerrard vs Atletico last season? Or the countless others?

I think that is a disgrace.

But I hold the opinion that it's better to punish one, than none.

It had to start happening sometime (hopefully it will continue), don't be bitter about it because it involves an Arsenal player.

I think one of the Sky Sports News guys said it's a new thing they're going to start to enforce this season, which would be the reason no earlier events have been punished. Hopefully they stay consistant. get the cheats out of our game.

I agree especially with Kurt's last sentence: punishment - if there is any - needs to be consistent across the board. And a suspension for diving is, in my opinion a good thing.

So with Alonso gone and Gerrard suspended 'fool fans cannot hope for the CL either.

Fishdoll raises a fin. Kurt, where'd you see the bit about Eduardo getting the 2-game suspension? UEFA's website mentions that there'll be a disciplinary hearing on Sept 1 but I don't see anything else?

Real Madrid have been catastrophic failures in Europe for almost a decade now - do you believe that they deserve to be pot 1 because they're Real Madrid? Or should it be by recent European performances?

Bayern and Juve have contributed even less to the CL in the last decade than Real Madrid have - hell one of these teams even got promoted from a lower league not that long ago, while the other is languishing near bottom of their league after the worst start they've made for over half a century.

Rangers, on the other hand, got to a European final, won their league and cup, and got to the last 16 of the CL in 2006 - not bad for their size I think. Sevilla have WON the Uefa Cup twice, and finished third in the best league in Europe.

And here some people are thinking that Real, and Juve should be ahead because of who they are?

Is that fair on teams who have actually achieved something in Europe (and domestically) recently?

But it's hardly fair to call it a waste of a group. These are teams which have done what it took to get where they are. Denigrating them because they don't have Kaka, Ribery, Ibrahimovich or Torres is completely unfair and frankly insults the point of the CL.

As an aside, Rangers' group at least has 2 champions of their country in it.

I think it's the worst decision ever, and wouldn't have happened had that fool Gordon Smith, who, as a former Rangers player has absurdly become a Celtic apologist, not vigorously demanded action against the player.

He is the one to cause all of this, no one else - Uefa wouldn't have batted an eyelid had he not stuck his oar in, and it's now opened the floodgates.

If the charge against Eduardo is fair, 3 players tonight including Ibrahimovich must be charged too. But I can't see Gordon demanding sanctions against them.

It's a disgraceful decision, and makes a mockery of consistency.

I respectfully disagree. That's called scapegoating, and truly validates Wenger's comment about a witch hunt.

You punish all, or none. You do not 'make an example' then fail to uphold the law you've created as a result. That simply doesn't work.

Well it won't continue. I assure you. Mainly because Gordon Smith has been in this job for 2 years, and made no issue of any other dives Celtic players made, but certainly made an issue of one a Rangers player did recently. And now one against Celtic has taken place and he loses the plot.

I can't see him coming out on Sunday and condemning any Celtic player if they should dive in the league.

It's, as Wenger said, an emotional decision and completely illogical.

It's only a charge at the moment. The 2 game suspension is based on the only 2 previous incidents I can remember - one involving a Lithuanian player who dived in a world cup qualifier at Hampden - he received a 2 match ban. And then more recently a Rangers player did so and was condemned by all and sundry, and received a 3 match ban.

I hope Eduardo is cleared of this. If not, every dive has to be punished. Every single one.