Fiorentina reached the top 32 of the Champions League was not unexpected by the outside world, in these three seasons, Fiorentina's rising momentum is very obvious, the level is comparable to Sporting Lisbon, and the away side has achieved an L:0 advantage, promotion can be said to be a matter of course, and being eliminated is the underdog.

Manchester United, Liverpool and Inter Milan, who scored big in the first leg, lacked fighting spirit, but the disparity in strength made the opponent's chance of an upset almost zero. Manchester United have beaten their opponents in Hungary with what they call their best defence in 10 years, with Neville's serious injury being the only regret. Liverpool, who were left for Friday's UEFA Super Cup, still qualified by aggregate score, despite losing seven to CSKA Sofia. The most noteworthy is the performance of the three Champions Cup newcomers in the four major leagues, Udinese defeated the UEFA Cup runner-up Sporting Lisbon at home, Betis eliminated Monaco away, and Villarell eliminated Everton at home, and the three new teams are very strong. Other traditional giants such as Ajax, Rangers and Rosenborg have all made it through.

In fact, driven by huge interests and honors, in the third round of the 16 Champions League qualifiers, there is almost no one that can be called an underdog, such as Lokomotiv Moscow was quickly eliminated by Vienna, Everton was lost by Villarreal, and it cannot be called an underdog, Lokomotiv Moscow and Vienna are at a similar level, and it is normal for Villarreal and Everton to eliminate whoever is eliminated.

If you take it down a bit, the only upsets are Toone's elimination of Swedish champions Malmo and Bratislava's penalty kick to eliminate Partizan.

Fiorentina's promotion made Chinese fans cheer, but Everton's exit made Chinese fans very regretful, because Everton also has a Chinese star - Li Gang, if Everton advances, the Champions League group stage will have a chance to stage a Chinese derby, which is a scene that all Chinese fans have fantasized about before, but now, this feat is impossible to happen.

But for Chen Yu's fans, this is also a good thing, so far. Chen Yu will be the first Chinese person to participate in the Champions League group stage exclusively.

After two legs in the third round of qualifying, 16 teams, including Fiorentina, have reached the Champions League group stage: Manchester United, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Fiorentina, Villarreal, Real Betis, Werder Bremen, Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Ajax, Glasgow Rangers, Rapid Vienna, Artemea, Thun, Panathinaikos and Rosenborg.

With 16 teams qualified through the qualifying round and 15 teams that went straight to the group stage, as well as Liverpool with wild cards, a total of 32 teams were drawn in Monte Carlo, Monaco the day after the qualification round.

Of the 32 teams, 13 of the Gl4 giants are seated, and only five of the top names are unfamiliar, with Udinese, Betis and Villarell beating their rivals to reach the group stage respectively, while Switzerland's Thun and Slovakia's Bratislava played the role of grassroots dark horses

Coming to the Champions League, especially in the group stage, Fiorentina and Villarreal can only be regarded as dark horses, acting as spoilers, while teams like Brugge, Rapid Vienna, Atmedia, Thun, Panathinaikos, Rosenborg are basically here to play soy sauce to earn some pocket money.

According to UEFA's club points system, the top 8 teams are seeded, and the other teams are divided into 3 tiers. During the draw, L teams will be drawn from each L bracket to form L groups, a total of 8 groups, provided that the teams in the same league are in different groups.

The teams in Pot 1 are: Real Madrid 13UAC Milan 19l Barcelona l17. U Liverpool l15. RU4 Manchester United l10. RU4 Inter Milan 1019l Bayern 97. 16 Hesena 93. RU4

The teams in Pot 2 are: Porto 93. 739 Juventus 93. 19l Eindhoven 84. 145 Lyon 8 beats Nacinekos 70. 715 Chelsea UR. RU Park Yarreal 58. River Jax. 145

Pot 3: Bruges 50. 47U Anderlecht 47. 47U Olympiacos 46. 715 Schalke 0444. 16U Sparta Prague 43. 3 Lille 4 [4 Glasgow Rangers 40. 47U Bremen 40. 16U

Pot 4: Benfica 36. 739 Rosenborg 36. UU5 Betis 34. U Fiorentina 30. 19L Fenerbahce. 87 Vienna Rapid 15. 8 Thun RR7 Bratislava 4850

Defending champions Liverpool are special, although they are seeded, but because they are specially approved to participate, they do not enjoy the treatment of "avoiding the same league", so they may meet Chelsea and Juventus in the first pot.

Although the new Serie A giants Fiorentina have risen strongly and become a strong team feared by the entire European football world, because they have not appeared in European competition for three years, they have very low points and can only be reduced to the fourth pot.

It is not "terrible" to have two strong teams in a group, such as AC Milan and Barcelona last season, Juventus and Bayern, because the other two opponents in the same group are weaker, the strong teams can often join hands to qualify after scoring enough points on the weak teams. Therefore, a group has three strong teams of equal strength to be called the "group of death".

The draw seems to inevitably be a "group of death", and because of the particularity of Liverpool and Fiorentina, whether they and Chelsea will be together will become an important basis for whether the group will die or not, and to what extent.

On Thursday evening, the draw for the Champions League group officially began, and the teams in all four brackets were divided into eight groups under the chairmanship of UEFA Secretary General David Taylor and Competition Director George.

Group A is: Bayern, Juventus, Club Brugge, Rapid Vienna.

Group H: Arsenal, Ajax, Sparta Prague, Thun.

Group C: Barcelona, Panathinaikos, Bremen, Fiorentina.

Group D: Manchester United, Villarreal, Lille, Benfica.

Group P: AC Milan, PSV Eindhoven, Schalke 04, Fenerbahce.

Group P: Real Madrid, Lyon, Olympiacos, Rosenborg.

Group G: Liverpool, Chelsea. Anderlecht, Betis.

Group H: Inter Milan, Porto, Rangers, Bratislava.

The draw confirmed that "it is not that enemies do not get together", the defending champion Liverpool and Chelsea staged a Premier League derby, the top three in Serie A AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus also reunited with last season's old rivals PSV Eindhoven, Porto and Bayern Munich respectively, and Manchester United met Villarell who played for the veteran Forlan also met in a narrow way

The media and fans have been worried that Liverpool will create a group of death, but after the draw results, the Reds and Blues fans were also relieved, although they met in a narrow way, the two opponents Real Betis and the old powerhouse Anderlecht are also good, but it will not affect the Reds and Blues to qualify.

The result of this UEFA draw basically guarantees the interests of the seeded teams. Arsenal and Inter Milan have both faced the ideal underdogs, with Barcelona in Group C, Manchester United in Group D and Chelsea in Group G relatively close. Manchester United and Barcelona dominate their respective groups, but with Villarel, Lille and Benfica, and Fiorentina and Bremen in Group C, Barca in Group C, the competition for a second place in the two groups will be fierce.

After the results of the lottery came out, some people were naturally happy and some were worried.

Like Villarreal, Real Betis, Thun and Artmedea, the four teams participating in the group stage of the Champions League for the first time, Villarreal and Real Betis naturally have some ideas to see if there is a chance to reach the L-finals, and Fish belly Thune and Atmediaa are here to see the world, for them, as long as they don't lose a mess, they win.

A team like Fiorentina, who have reached the last 16 but not the quarter-finals, is now their goal.

Fiorentina don't have many stars, but they have the same steel backline as all the good Italian teams, and an extremely difficult Chinese hitman, Chen Yu, who is intimidated by an average of one goal per game.

After the draw result, Fiorentina coach Prandelli said: "It's been a tough group. Panathinaikos and Bremen cannot be ignored, and it will not be easy to fight for second place in the group. But we have nothing, nothing to lose. ”

Fiorentina captain Chen Yu is very confident of qualifying from the group: "This signing is not good, at least there are no two giants, Barcelona is better than us, there is no doubt about it, he is better than the other three, but if we can beat Panathinaikos and Bremen, there will be no problem in qualifying, but if you want to reach the quarterfinals, you need luck." ”

Barcelona president Joan Laporta remains cautiously optimistic: "It could be a good signing, but German and Italian teams are always difficult to deal with. ”

In Rijkaard's analysis, all three teams have struggles to deal with. "Bremen gave Valencia a leg up last season; Panathinaikos' away game will not be easy, as Lexach's Barcelona lost to Panathinaikos in Athens in the '01 season. Fiorentina is something that every team doesn't want to touch, think of their striker Chen, if you can't score, you're basically going to lose, because Chen has averaged more than one goal per game since his debut. “

There are also those who draw a good sign and are not greedy, like Juventus, their opponents are not only Bayern, Club Brugge and Rapid Vienna are fish belly, but Capello said: "You have to be very careful to play Bayern, Club Brugge is also a well-organized team, we don't know much about Vienna Rapid, but they eliminated a strong team like Lokomotiv Moscow." ”

Like Arsenal, who are lacking in confidence, Arsenal's signings couldn't have been better, their opponents are Ajax, Sparta Prague and Thun, but the club's vice-president Dane said: "We always ask ourselves what we can't do better in Europe and achieve the desired success, it's an unattainable ambition...... We need to succeed in Europe...... Every team can't afford to ignore it, and I hope that our Swiss defender, Senderos, will act as a spy and provide some intelligence on Thun, Switzerland. ”

Before the draw, the madman Mourinho was dissatisfied with UEFA's ranking of Chelsea in the second bracket, believing that UEFA's five-year results were used as the seeding standard, completely ignoring the team's recent record was unreasonable, and after the draw results came out, the madman contradicted himself that this group was very dangerous, "It's not only because Liverpool, no matter who we draw, all the seeded teams are dangerous, they are all giants." The group is dangerous because Pot 3 and Pot 4 are the weaker teams, but we drew Anderlecht and Betis. Anderlecht have an illustrious history in Europe, with Betis competing for the first time but very strong and one of the best teams in Spain. ”

An hour after the results of the draw were announced, William Hill, a well-known European bookmaker, immediately adjusted the odds to win the championship. Chelsea remain the top favourites to win the tournament. Barcelona and AC Milan are in second and third place, Real Madrid, Juventus, Manchester United, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich and Lyon are in the top 10, while defending champions Liverpool are only in the top 10.

As a candidate for the three dark horses this season, Villarreal is the highest-ranked at No. 1, with Real Betis in 13th place, while Fiorentina are the least favourites and they are only 16th.