UEFA Cup Group D Preview

By: Ian Rose | October 12th, 2007

Fourth part, yada yada, eight parts, yada yada. Here’s my preview of Group D of this year’s UEFA Cup.

Group D is, in order of seeding:
Basel (Switzerland), Hamburg (Germany), Rennes (France), Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia), Brann (Norway)

The matches:
Basel v. Rennes, 25 October
Basel doesn’t lose often at home, and will gain some of the respect they deserve with a home win over the French side here.

Brann v. Hamburg, 25 October
Brann is killing their competition in Norway this season, but Hamburg is going to come in strong. Draw.

Rennes v. Brann, 8 November
The French will take this one at home, relatively comfortably.

Dinamo Zagreb v. Basel, 8 November
No one wants to travel to Croatia to face Zagreb. They are a tough team and severely underrated at a four seed. I like Zagreb for the home win over the first-seeded Basel.

Hamburg v. Rennes, 29 November
Hamburg take this one at home, but not much separates these two in my mind.

Brann v. Dinamo Zagreb, 29 November
Dinamo continue their strong start with an away draw in Norway.

Dinamo Zagreb v. Hamburg, 5 December
Dinamo are strong, but won’t quite be enough for Bundesliga competition. Away win.

Basel v. Brann, 5 December
Comfortable home win for Basel.

Hamburg v. Basel, 20 December
Basel may be the one seed, but Hamburg is my favorite to win this group, and they take another home victory over the Swiss.

Rennes v. Dinamo Zagreb, 20 December
This is the match that decides everything for both of these teams. I see Dinamo surprising Rennes and taking the draw, which should be enough to qualify them.

If I am having a rare moment of prediction skill, and these games fall as I have laid out, here’s the final table, with advancing teams in bold:

Hamburg (10 points)
Basel (6 points)
Dinamo Zagreb (5 points)
Rennes (4 points)
Brann (2 points)

It’s a tough call between Rennes and Dinamo for the third spot, but I have to give the edge to the Croatians. They are a very tough side to play, especially at home. They might even creep up to second, but I am fairly confident in Hamburg as the winners of this group. They’re on good form at home, in a great league, and although they’ve worked their way up from the Intertoto Cup, I like them to perform very well here. The Norwegians are playing well, and are going to be a handful at home, but I just can’t see them pulling off too many surprises here.