Holders: Barcelona
Final venue: Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid, Spain

Celtic vs Arsenal. Oh yes, very much looking forward to that.

Fantastic draw for Stuttgart. Already looking forward to see three German teams in the CL this season.

How's Hitzlsperger doing these days? I heard he had a great first season, not heard much about him since.

Actually his first season was rubbish. But he's been doing fine since then. He's Stuttgarts captain and a starter in our NT. Also, how could anyone not like a person who has such amazing shooting skills?

He was rubbish!? I've only heard good things! Good to see he's done well overall and got himself into the German team, that's why he said he left Villa and it looks like he's completed his goal. His shooting is incredible, his German/Brummie accent is even better.

Sporting v Fiorentina looks good too.

Random programming note: Fox Soccer Channel has the US rights to broadcast the CL this year. They're going to be showing the 3d round games next week, some live, most on delay. I'm going to need to borrow Fishdoll's earmuffs if Max Bretos does commentary, though!

does that unclude group stage matches~??!! excellent news, besides the bretos part....

Yup, all the way to the finals, Hab.

I must have missed that one. Not a fan of Sporting, find them a little dull to watch. Let's Go Gila and co!

excellent, now i have 3 channels that play CL

telelatino was always nice cuz they played all the italian teams and the broadcast was in italian (RAI i believe)

So, Max Bretos is going to be the voice of the CL on Fox Soccer Channel (he'll host the highlights show, etc etc). God help us all. At least Bobby McMahon (the one clueful guy on that channel) will be doing analysis.

Anyway, here are the fixtures for today and tomorrow:

UEFA Champions League
Play-Offs 18 August 2009
Celtic 19:45 Arsenal
Sporting 20:45 Fiorentina
København 20:45 APOEL
Sheriff 21:45 Olympiacos
Timişoara 21:45 Stuttgart


UEFA Champions League
Play-Offs 19 August 2009
Lyon 20:45 Anderlecht
Salzburg 20:45 M. Haifa
Levski 21:45 Debrecen
Panathinaikos 21:45 Atlético
Ventspils 20:45 Zürich

The fixtures will be reversed (it's a home-and-away thing) and the winners of the ties go into the group stage. The one good thing that can be said about Fox having the rights is that they're going to show games starting today, one stage earlier than ESPN did.

Fishdoll +1 cookie to the Sporting fans for having the big banners welcoming the viola fans up at the Alvalade before the game.

Both ex-gobbi are starting for Fiorentina.

Gallas just before HT gave Arsenal 1-0 lead. Fiorentina lead 1-0 at Sporting, Stuttgart lead 2-0 at Timisoara.

Smug alert!

And both of Fiorentina's centerbacks have yellows. So does Zanetti. That game's a bit rough -- or the ref is really cardhappy.

Aaaaaaaaaaand, in the 'brain? what brain?' category, we have Sporting's Vukcevic, who scored the equalizing goal for his team and took off his jersey to celebrate. Only problem with that is that he'd already picked up a yellow. So...Sporting have drawn even but now they're down to ten guys.

Eh?

Sporting 1-1 Fiorentina. Vukcevic. He was sent off right after scoring, silly celebration by the sounds of it. Now it's 2-1 Sporting.

EDIT: Celtic 0-2 Arsenal. Gary Caldwell OG. This tie is over.

This is not Gary Caldwell's season. First the red card v Norway and now the OG. Someone put the mal'occhio on him.

Goal Gilardino, so it's Sporting 2 - 2 Fiorentina.

Celtic 0-2 Arsenal
Timisoara 0-2 Stuttgart
Sporting 2-2 Fiorentina

the fiorentina match was pretty intense, it doesn't seem that fio had the speed necessary for Sporting, but hey Gila poached a goal against the current of gameplay for a 4-2 agg

4-2? I didn't realise this was a 2nd leg game.

Gallas is as smug as they get. It gets worse when he scores.

Um. Neither did i?

It's not. Il Diavolo either made a typo or is confused with the away goal rule.

Watching the Sporting-Fiorentina highlights now. Vukcevic's sending off was very harsh. The 2nd yellow card obviously correct, but the first was a poor decision. Gamberini grabbed hold of him, shoved him in the face and should have been sent off, but only got a yellow, while Vukcevic was also given a yellow for nothing. Poor officiating. But what else do you expect from a ref?

Okay, I've just seen the Gamberini-Vukcevic thing. That was an ugly little incident. Looked to me like one of the other Sporting players got in Gamberini's face, he reacted, then Vukcevic got in the way. Bad form.

Really shocked at how nasty some of the Viola players were. It was a rough game. Still, they've got 2 away goals going into the home leg so probably have the advantage.

I think Fiorentina will go through. They looked pretty good from the highlights. GILA!

I'm still really surprised the Gobbi sold Cristiano Zanetti to Fiorentina, especially given the reported cost (1.5 mln). He's a better player than that -- must've been a massive bust up between him and Ciro or somesuch.

well its a 4-2 agregate score for la viola but a 2-2 draw result.
sorry for the misprint :S

It isn't a 4-2 aggregate score, that's not how the away goals rule works. Away goals only count double if the score is tied after the 2 legs. Otherwise, if away goals just counted double at all times, a 4-3 win for Fiorentina in the 2nd leg would mean an 8-8 draw on aggregate - a level score - even though Fiorentina would have won 1 and drew 1.

It should have been a red for Gamberini and a yellow for Liedson and Vukcevic, no doubt about it.

I also think a yellow card for taking off your shirt is the most ridiculous rule in any sport ever created in the history of the universe. Bad tackles should all be a red card then. The rule exists though and it should be followed... the thing is, the rules are there to help the game not to domineer it... which means a second yellow for taking of your shirt is even more ridiculous than the rule itself and should never be given

I actually think the rule itself was put ito place due to players having something written on a shirt underneath which sometimes would cause controversy. But the rule has been taken too far and some players just seem to do it in the moment. If it's not offending anyone I really don't see a problem with it. The football nazi's at UEFA obviously do though.

As a random aside I hope Milan and Rangers are in the opposite ends of the groups - separate day matches. Be a pain in my rectal cavity if they are in the same side. Even worse if they're in the same group

Today's CL results:


Red Bull Salzburg 1 - 2 Maccabi Haifa
FK Ventspils 0 - 3 Zurich
Levski Sofia 1 - 2 Debreceni VSC
Lyon 5 - 1 Anderlecht
Panathinaikos 2 - 3 Atlético Madrid

Champions League will earn clubs & UEFA a record €1.09 billion in marketing and television revenues this season

Link:
http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/9965...hampions-League

I'm now seeing the full Sporting - Fiorentina game. Gamberini and Dainelli are very, very lucky guys. The could both, easily, have been sent off. Gamberini especially suprrised me - and saddened me. Don't want to see him in an Italy jersey again but thankfully that probably won't be an issue as there are better centerbacks, including some of the kids who've graduated up from the U21s.

I only saw extended highlights but what Gamberini did looked terrible at the time. I don't understand why players do that at times, it's not good for you, your team or the sport.

That was a red card for sure. Some times you just can't hold yourself, I'm actually surprised that it does not happen more often to footballers / athletes in general.

What did Dainelli do?

Not the level of Gamberini stuff. But (with apologies to Kurt) more the Materazzi-type of nasty fouls. Lots of them.

Celtic's N'Guémo looked good against Arsenal, has anyone seen him play before?

I've never even heard of him. I didn't notice him in the game at all.

(I'm not trying to be a pain this time, I really didn't notice him)

How could you not notice him, he was Celtic's black guy! (we can joke about these things can't we?)

(you know you're the main reason why I visit this forum, don't you?)

I just didn't! Though I'll admit I was on here at the time so wasn't paying 100% attention to the game.

You said you loved me!

WE can. You don't.

Is there a vid of the foul? I tried looking on youtube but nothing was coming up

did any of you guys notice that we could get real at the group stages

That would be nice. We'll test the ground before the final then...