HOLDERS: Chelsea (English)

UEFA Champions League/European Cup Recent Winners (Since '92):

92/93 Marseille
93/94 AC Milan
94/95 Ajax
95/96 Juventus
96/97 Borussia Dortmund
97/98 Real Madrid
98/99 Manchester United
99/00 Real Madrid
00/01 Bayern Munich
01/02 Real Madrid
02/03 AC Milan
03/04 Porto
04/05 Liverpool
05/06 Barcelona
06/07 AC Milan
07/08 Manchester United
08/09 Barcelona
09/10 Inter Milan
10/11 Barcelona
11/12 Chelsea

Can't wait for Luuk de Jong scoring the winner in the final.

Borussia will need to beat Kiev first, who bought several good player this offseason (Kranjcar, Raffael, Veloso...). Will be an interesting game.

You forgot to mention Taiwo.

Herrmann is going to have

a good time

Well, I still think Reuss will be sorely missed. And if I know Favre's teams - he won't be as successful in Europe as in the Liga.

Luuk de Jong

What a poor replacement for Reus. Lazy up front, sloppy with the ball and now manages an own-goal as well. Kiev 3-1 in Germany. Game over for Gladbach I think.

Instead he just scored an own goal Borussia losing 1-3 at home.

Damn you Fillipo, beat me to it

Haha, well better luck next time

I feel so sorry for Gladbach. The fans deserved more.
But they payed their prize for inexperience. Daems and Xhaka were awful as well.

Did Taiwo play for Kiev?

All 90. Didn't do anything remotely bad.

My ambitions for us are just to get to the last 16. If we manage that, it'll have been a good CL season.

His passing was bad. He has a habit to pass dangerous balls through the middle. One of them almost cause Borussia to score and the commentator said that because of his error Kiev lost their last league game.

Yes, but this will likely get better when he starts feeling the team. His defending all in all was okay.

I doubt it, I just don't rate him at all. He's mediocre at best and very sloppy. We'll see how he will do in the group stage.

Udinese a few minutes from going to penalties against Braga.

Maicosuel tries a Pirlo and fucks up...

What a douchebag. Should be sodomized by his teammates.

Udinese out, that was the only miss. Idiot.

Typical Udine.

Only us and Juve in it now. We'll be out by the groups so it's up to Juve to put in a decent showing.

Italy could easily slip behind France at the rate things are going

Sad days for Italian football indeed. And seems like it's gonna be like this for quite a while.

Serie A could drop below both France and Portugal (especially seeing as Udinese lost to a Portugese side) by next season. The big worry is that although they're currently 9 points ahead of Holland, in 2 years time they'lllose 11 co-efficient points on them. Dropping to 7th would mean yet another CL place gone.

How far away seem Spain, England and Germany.

@Kurt that is very sad, yet predictable

So typical Udinese. Fight all season long, then sell most of their squad and fail to make the CL. Now they'll play a B-squad in the Europa. This is why I prefer Lazio, Roma or Napoli finishing ahead of them.

Milan
Manchester City
Paris Saint German
Malaga

How about that?

or

Milan
Sporting Braga
Dinamo Zagabria
FC Nords

With our luck, we'll get the first one

Man U will get the second since they always get the easy draws

If we get Paris Saint German, it'll be further proof that UEFA draws are fixed. Not that we need any. Almost every time a big transfer takes place between European clubs, the smart alics at UEFA make sure they pitch the two related teams together. The lure of $$$ for them, and drama for fans, is too big to miss.

YEEEESSSSSSSS!! Ever since Milan eliminated my home team some years ago in a CL qualification tie I've been longing for another chance to wear my Milan shirt in my home town with a special reason

Real
City
Juve
Dortmund

Exactly. Last season they sell Zapata, Inler and Sanchez before the play-off against Arsenal. Now they sell Isla and Asamoah. How do they expect to qualify for or even play in the CL? We keep bashing B&G for being cheap, but this Pozzo dude has made a shitload of money in recent years and has practically signed no-one worth mentioning. They just sell and sell and sell. Ridiculous.

I don't think they expect to. Yet despite the sales they've still done it 2 years straight.

I don't they're comparable to Milan either. They averaged 15,000 fans in a season where they finished top 3. Not many outside of Italy will have even heard of them, they have to sell to stay alive pretty much. Milan have regular CL income, a big worldwide fanbase and an average attendance over 3 times as big. Udinese fans can't really complain since they don't put much money into the club and still get to see a good team. Milan fans put lots of money in the club and get **** back.

I don't think we put in that much money into the club to be honest. Our matchday income is incredibly tiny.

+1. Love them or hate them, Udinese has one of the better youth and scouting setup. And it's there for one reason alone. Unearthing and snapping up good players with the intent to sell them to bigger clubs. Farming at it's best. Or worst. And oh, can't really say I care for them, they are free to do whatever their heart desires.

45k fans on average? I wasn't talking about just match day income, how many Milan shirts are sold worldwide? A lot I would imagine.

Not read the whole thread through laziness. Can someone tell me when the draw tomorrow is BST?

45 k fans, but they pay much less in Italy than for example in England or Germany for a match day ticket. The San Siro has pretty low ticket prices.

Milan shirts are a good point. I'll go so far as to say we might even be top in Italy, but as I've been trying to explain for sometime now, top in Italy is still way off the heavy hitter range.

But yes, I understand here the context is with Udinese. No question.

Udinese's model is pretty unique in Italy.

Yeah, my point was as a comparison with Udinese regarding finances/player sales. Of course in comparison with similar stature sides in other leagues, Milan have a far lower income.

We really do need to look at getting our own stadium.

Well Udinese's model is to have probably THE best South American scouting system in Europe, while making sure that moving players on for a profit keeps them going.

They run a risk of course, of being priced out. But so far it has been successful.

Yeah, right

Uefa Champions League 2012/13 - Winner coefficients

• FC Barcelona3.9
• Real Madrid4.5
• Manchester City7.5
• Manchester United11.0
• FC Bayern München12.0
• Chelsea FC14.0
• Juventus Turin15.0
• Paris Saint Germain18.0
• Borussia Dortmund22.0
• Arsenal FC22.0
• AC Milan24.0

Is Juventus Turin their official club name? I never knew that if true.

No, Germans call them by this name. Their founding name is Sport Club Juventus, but F. C. Juventus nowadays. It has something to do with their crooked past, present and future management(s)

Poor Gladbach, almost got it right. What a waist de Jong is.

it HUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTS
SSSS

It does. Mostly because the next chance will most probably occur in about...10-15 years.

Why do you care? Gladbach fan?

yes

Well, they've really deserved it. Last season they played so good and now all the effort was virtually for nothing.

CL draw pots :