here is the draw!
I think the weakest groups are Group G & Group H
So Arsenal looking good, even though Dutch & Turkish teams are tough
Strongest groups are likely Group D, Group E & Group A
Chelsea have Porto & Atletico Madrid, so finishing in the Top 2 will be a dogfight
Group E have Liverpool, Fiorentina & Lyon, so it will be a fight amongst mediocre teams 
Group A have Bayern, Juve & Bordeaux, so also tough.
First round September 15 & 16
From the BBC:
“Last season, clubs contesting the Champions League proper earned between £4.6m to £20.4m.
In addition, they took home a share of the £237.31m television pot and match-day income, which for the top English clubs is about £3m per match.”
As an American sports fan who has been living in the UK over the past 10 years, I have increasingly been amazed at the lack of technology in football (English Premier League) – both in the sport itself, in its reporting and in its statistical analysis.
This is where Arsenal love to draw while charging the highest ticket prices in the Premier League
Just today, I turned on Sky Sports and watched grown men with headphones on reporting on today’s football matches while watching private direct video feeds of the matches that I as a consumer do not have access to…compared with the US where I can watch ever single baseball match on TV or the internet live, or every NFL game live again on TV or the internet. Yet here in the UK, I can perhaps watch two to four football matches per weekend live (if I am lucky) out of the 10 possible matches that can occur in the Premier League alone.
I understand that there are broadcasting restrictions in place, and that some clubs feel that showing all the matches on TV can have a negative impact on attendance figures, but the spiralling ticket prices and unbelievable year over year increases in both season ticket prices and individual game tickets is not helping attendance either. I think clubs who have waiting lists for seasons ticketholders that number into the tens of thousands feel that there is sufficient inelastic demand to raise prices, but feel that allowing all the matches to be broadcast on TV will erode a fans’ desire to go to a game. However, many of these waiting lists have people who were applied when times were better and prices were lower – surely there is a better way to increase total revenue to clubs through more universal broadcasting and availability of live matches and highlights on TV and the internet, as well as keeping the lucrative gate receipts.
A second area where the lack of the latest technology was apparent, although less so nowadays, is in the training and technology employed by teams. Arsene Wenger is credited with bringing the English Premier League into the modern age in terms of training, diet and player management. When Wenger arrived in the Premier League twelve years ago in 1996, he was derided by the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United, and even by his own players at Arsenal for his “professorial” ways. Its amazing that a league like the Premier League was still stuck in the dark ages, and even its leading managers did not employ better training methods. Its taken the past decade for the Premier League to catch up, but its amazing to think that the poor training and diet habits persisted as long as they did, and that the good ol’ boy tradition of pints, fish & chips and biscuits was the norm amongst supposedly world-class athletes.
This is how I watch football...I watch a grown man telling me what's happening...its like the anti-radio broadcast
The final area in which English football is behind the times is in statistics. When one watches a US baseball or NFL game, the announcers (and teams) are armed with statistics – everything from situational probabilities (e.g. the probability a team will score when in this portion of the field, the number of steals/tackles won, goal efficiency by player, etc), to matchup facts and head-to-head player records. I have never seen this during an English football broadcast – e.g., if a team or annoucer knew that Arsenal have a 10% probability of conceding a goal on a corner kick, and a 50% probability if it happens to be within 2 minutes of the end of the first half, or which player had the highest probablility of scoring a penalty at night away from home, it would be very helpful in decision making, training, etc. Being armed with situational statistics can help managers & teams be more scientific, and it can be more entertaining for viewers as well.
Anyway, I will wait for Match of the Day tonight to find out what I missed…and perhaps my next company will be a stats company for football.
