GROUP A: Ajax Amsterdam – Anderlecht- Dinamo Zagreb- Timisoara

GROUP B: Valenica- Lille OSC – Slavia Prague- Genoa

GROUP C: Hamburg SV- Celtic- Hapoel Tel Aviv- Rapid Vienna

GROUP D: Sporting Lisbon- Heerenveen- Hertha Berlin- Ventspils

GROUP E: AS Roma- FC Basel- Fulham- CSKA Sofia

GROUP F: Panathinaikos – Galatasaray – Dinamo Bucharest – Sturm Graz

GROUP G: Villarreal – SS Lazio – Levski Sofia – Red Bull Salzburg

GROUP H: Steaua Bucharest – Fenerbahce – FC Twente – Sheriff

GROUP I: SL Benfica – Everton – AEK Athens – BATE

GROUP J: Shakhtar Donetsk – Club Brugge – Partizan Belgrade – Toulouse

GROUP K: PSV Eindhoven – FC Copenhagen – Sparta Prague – CFR Cluj

GROUP L: Werder Bremen – Austria Vienna – Athletic Bilbao – CD Nacional

We’ve definitely been graced with some interesting match ups and concurrent storylines. Unlike in that other continental tournament, it’s also a bit more difficult to say with any certainty who the quarterfinalists will be based on the group stage draw (and yet, I’m about to say who’s going to advance like I’m doing anything other than making an educated guess.)

Group A should be a matter of Ajax and Timisoara ultimately advancing. Dinamo Zagreb are, of course, no pushovers, and would have no problem pouncing if Ajax or Timisoara performed at less than their best. Anderlecht is something of an unknown quantity here. They were utterly abject and completely out of their depth against Lyon, but they did handle an opponent, Sivasspor, that was more on this competition’s level with some ease. I think anything short of a superhuman performance will see the former giants exit without embarrassing themselves.

Group B appears to be the winner in the ‘group of death’ sweepstakes. In all honesty, it might be a stretch to imagine Slavia Prague doing anything more than playing spoiler, but we could easily see Valencia or Genoa drop out of Europe very early.

Hamburg will be pleased with the Group C draw. If they can avoid any slip ups against Celtic at home, they should emerge as group winners without serious complications. Meanwhile, those of us who read a lot of British press will have to suffer more delusions of grandeur on Celtic’s part. Hopefully Rapid Vienna and Hapoel will handle Celtic at home as well, and give us a fresh face in the knockout stages.

Hertha Berlin’s draw avoided sheer terror, but replaced it with gnawing unease. On paper, Hertha and Sporting should be fighting amongst themselves for the top spot, but I would be dishonest if I said I didn’t worry about losing in Latvia or Holland.

Roma, were, again, handed a manageable draw. Roma, who have had their last four European campaigns ended by English opposition (Middlesboro, Manchester United twice, and Arsenal) will have to test themselves against Fulham. If either of the two were to falter, I would expect CSKA Sofia to be the more likely candidate to take advantage.

Group F has the potential to be a very volatile affair, and not in a good way. Three hotbeds of intense passion, which on numerous occasions has crossed the line into very real violence, have been put together in the same group. Sturm Graz, incidentally, must be thrilled about these away trips. In pure football terms, this looks like the end of the line for Sturm. Without watching the Greek, Turkish, or Romanian leagues on a weekly basis, picking the two teams to advance is too close to call.

Group G seems simple enough: Villarreal to advance with the other three fighting for second. Lazio have been wildly inconsistent on a season to season basis in recent times. If they’re in one of their funks for whatever reason, energy drink branding synergy football club should go through with Villarreal.

For me, the big story in Group H is Twente. Will this be the beginning of a young team establishing themselves in Europe (until the G-14 clubs start waving dollars again,) or will it be a case of difficult trips to Romania and Turkey being a step to far for them to get out of this group?

The first instinct with Group I is to say Benfica and Everton, but AEK and BATE won’t simply roll over. Depending on how the domestic season is going in England, we could very well see a reserve squad being sent out sooner than ever (in fairness, Everton have been less inclined to do this than other English clubs.) Under normal conditions, let’s stick with Everton and Benfica and see what happens.

Everyone probably wishes they were in Group J. Shakhtar Donetsk and Toulouse are just in a different class than Club Brugge and Partizan Belgrade right now. If Brugge or Partizan got out of the group, it would be very big news indeed.

Group K is going to be another closely contested affair. PSV, who haven’t been overly impressive in any competition so far, could very well be a high profile casualty from this group. They could just as easily stay the course they’re on and win every game 1-0 though.

Finally, in Group L, it’s very tempting to declare that Nacional might throw a wrench into the works, based on their elimination of Zenit St. Petersburg. Russian clubs have not exactly been having a good summer in Europe however. Again, let’s go with the conservative guess, and say Werder Bremen and Bilbao will go through, and wait for any surprises.

PAOK 1 – Heerenveen 1
Dinamo Zagreb 4 – Hearts 0
Werder Bremen 6 - Aktobe 3
Everton 4 – Sigma Olomouc 0
BATE 0 – Litex Lovech 1
NAC Breda 1 – Villarreal 3
Lech Poznan 1 - Club Brugge 0
Fulham 3 – Amkar Perm 1
Galatasaray 5 – Levadia 0
FK Teplice 1 – Hapoel Tel Aviv 2
Metalurh Donetsk 2 – Austria Vienna 2
FC Twente 3 – Qarabag 1
MFK Kosice 3 – AS Roma 3
CSKA Sofia 0 – Dinamo Moscow 0
Genk 1 – Lille OSC 2
Bnei Yehuda 0 – PSV Eindhoven 1
Lazio 3 – Elfsborg 0
Trabzonspor 1 – Toulouse 3
Partizan Belgrade 1 – MSK Zilina 1
FK Baku 1 – Basel 3
Ajax Amsterdam 5 – Slovan Bratislava 0
Sivasspor 0 – Shakhtar Donetsk 3
Brøndby 2 – Hertha Berlin 1
Athletic Bilbao 3 – Tromsø 2
FK Sarajevo 1 – CFR Cluj 1
Rapid Vienna 1 – Aston Villa 0
Steaua Bucharest 3 - St. Patrick’s 0
NK Maribor 0 – Sparta Prague 2
CD Nacional 4 – Zenit St. Petersburg 3
Genoa 3 – Odense BK 1
Dinamo Bucharest – Slovan Liberec MATCH ABANDONED
Guingamp 1 – Hamburg SV 5
FC Sion 0 – Fenerbahce 2
Sturm Graz 1 – Metalist Kharkiv 1
Slavia Prague 3 – Red Star Belgrade 0
Benfica 4 – Volska Poltava 0
Vaslui 2 – AEK Athens 1
Stabæk 0 – Valencia 3

As in the previous round, there were a couple of surprises to start off with. In the last twenty minutes of their game, Roma went from having a comfortable 3-1 advantage to bring back to Rome to 3-3. Rapid Vienna defeated Aston Villa, which was the standout among a fairly good day by current Austrian standards.

Ajax, Everton, Galatasaray, and Hamburg all coasted to victory in their matches.

Russian football continued to have a bad summer in European competition. Dinamo Moscow’s 0-0 draw with CSKA Sofia was the best of the day’s result. Amkar Perm were beaten by Fulham and former UEFA Cup winners Zenit St. Petersburg were on the wrong side of a 4-3 goal fest against Nacional of Portugal.

On a note of personal annoyance, Hertha proved any of us who were filled with anxiety about Brøndby correct, for now. They will have to overturn a 2-1 deficit in Berlin next week.

For the most part, it seems like this is the point in the competition where many of the charming minnows and mid sized teams that have done well to get to this point are going to bow out.

An 11-1 aggregate score is bound to attract attention, even when it takes place in early Europa League qualifying rounds between two teams that even the most dedicated observers are unfamiliar with. FC Zestaponi, the club that administered this beating to Northern Ireland’s Lisburn Distillery, definitely fits this description.

The amount of background available about the club is not very detailed; the club’s English language website and, of course, Wikipedia, appear to be the only sources of information. FC Zestaponi was founded in 2004 with the backing of the city’s Ferro-Alloy plant. As the city itself is home to a fairly large metal producing industry, during the Soviet era the city’s club was Metallurg, I assume that the plant counts as a major backer.

The official site touts the contribution of the club and owners towards Georgian football as a whole and its investment into the sporting infrastructure of the city, especially in regards to upgrading the stadium. This kind of local investment can only be a good thing. Readers of Jonathan Wilson’s Behind the Curtain will probably remember the story of WIT Georgia, who were forced to move a 2001 Intertoto tie against Austrian club SV Reid on the grounds that their home stadium did not actually constitute a stadium.

If recent history is any guide, Georgian teams have not fared well against more capable opposition, so Zestaponi, in all likelihood, face an uphill battle against Helsingborg in the next round.

Aggregate scores in parentheses

Sutjeska Niksic 1 – MTZ-RIPO 2 (MTZ-RIPO 3 – Sutjeska Niksic 2)
Lahti 0 – Dinamo Tirana 2 (Lahti 4 – Dinamo Tirana 3)
Grevenmacher 0 – Vetra 3 (Grevenmacher 0 – Vetra 6)
NSI Runavik 1 – Rosenborg 3 (NSI Runavik 1 – Rosbenborg 6)
Szombathelyi Haladas 1 – Irtysh 2 (Szombathelyi Haladas 2 – Irtysh 2)
Sligo Rovers 1 – Vllaznia 1 (Sligo Rovers 2 – Vllaznia 3)
Olimpi Rustavi 2 - B36 Torshavn 0 (Olimpi Rustavi 4 – B36 Torshavn 0)
Anorthosis 2 – Kaerjeng 1 (Anorthosis 7 – Kaerjeng 1)
Slaven Koprivnica 0 – Birkirkara 0 (Slaven Koprivnica 1 – Birkirkara 0)
Zimbru Chisinau 2 – Okzhetpes 0 (Zimbru Chisinau 3 – Okzhetpes 2)
Lisburn Distillery 0 – Zestaponi 6 (Lisburn Distillery 1 – Zestaponi 11)
Helsingborg 1 – MIKA 1 (Helsingborg 4 – MIKA 2)
Valletta 2 – Keflavik 2 (Valletta 5 – Keflavik 2)
Dinaburg 0 – JK Nomme Kalju 0 (Dinaburg 2- JK Nomme Kalju 1)
Buducnost 1 – Polonia Warsaw 0 (Buducnost 1 – Polonia Warsaw 2)
Narva Trans 1 – Rudar Velenje 3 (Narva Trans 1 – Rudar Velenje 6)
Motherwell 3 – Llanelli 0 (Motherwell 3 – Llanelli 1)
Banants 1 – Siroki Brijeg 0 (Banants 1 – Siroki Brijeg 2)
Spartak Trnava 3 – Inter Baku 1 (Spartak Trnava 5 – Inter Baku 2)
Dinamo Minsk 1 – Renova 1 (Dinamo Minsk 3 – Renova 2)
Randers 3 - Linfield 0 (Randers 7 – Linfield 0)
Simurq Zaqatala 0 – Bnei Yehuda 3 (Simurq Zaqatala 0 – Bnei Yehuda 4)
Fram 2 – The New Saints 1 (Fram 4 – The New Saints 2)

I’ll certainly have to make Georgia’s Zestaponi the first ‘know your minnows’ club. They absolutely demolished Lisburn Distillery again for an 11-1 aggregate victory. The other southern ex-Soviet states did not fair as well, as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan’s representatives were knocked out, though Kazakhstan does still have Tobol, who will play Galatasaray in the second round. In other former Soviet republic news, Belarus faired well, with both MTZ-RIPO and Dinamo Minsk advancing.

Dinamo Tirana fell just short of overturning a three goal first leg deficit, as they defeated Finland’s Lahti 2-0 but still went out on aggregate. Their countrymen, Vllaznia earned a second round tie against Rapid Vienna, after completing their aggregate victory over Sligo Rovers.

The only teams that successfully overturned first leg defeats were Motherwell and Moldova’s Zimbru Chişinău.

Sutjeska Niksic 1 – MTZ RIPO 1
Lahti 4 - Dinamo Tirana 1
Grevenmacher 0 – Vetra 3
NSI Runavik 0 – Rosenborg 3
Szombathelyi Haladas 1 – Irtysh 0
Sligo Rovers 1 – Vllaznia 2
Olimpi Rustavi 2 - B36 Torshavn 0
Anorthosis 5 – Kaerjeng 0
Slaven Koprivnica 1 - Birkirkara 0
Zimbru Chisinau 1 – Okzhetpes 2
Lisburn Distillery 1 – Zestaponi 5
Helsingborg 3 – MIKA 1
Valletta 3 – Keflavik 0
Dinaburg 2 - JK Nomme Kalju 1
Buducnost 0 – Polonia Warsaw 2
Narva Trans 0 – Rudar Velenje 3
Motherwell 0 – Llanelli 1
Banants 0 – Siroki Brijeg 2
Spartak Trnava 2 – Inter Baku 1
Dinamo Minsk 2 – Renova 1
Randers 4 - Linfield 0
Simurq Zaqatala 0 – Bnei Yehuda 1
Fram 2 – The New Saints 1

Motherwell losing at home to their Welsh opponents Llanelli will probably be considered the surprise result of the day. Sligo Rovers home loss to Albania’s Vllaznia is another candidate for that category. Sligo’s Alan Keane had a particularly bad day, scoring a 75th minute own goal, and missing a penalty.

The battle of Baltic former Soviet republics featured two injury time goals as Dinaburg of Latvia defeated Nomme Kalju of Estonia. Another, more famous, ex-Soviet club, Dinamo Minsk, struggled a bit against their Macedonian opposition, Renova; Dinamo required a late comeback to take a 2-1 advantage into the second leg.

Two of the the most decisive results of the day were bad news for Northern Ireland as Randers comprehensively defeated Linfield and Georgia’s Zestaponi will have five away goals to work with, after a 5-1 victory over Lisburn Distillery.

Overall, the day’s matches were fairly evenly split between the closely contested and the one sided.

These are Europe’s smallest qualifiers. Some come from leagues that have always been near the bottom of the food chain, like Wales, the Faroe Islands, Luxembourg and Malta. Not to belittle their efforts, but in the bygone days of open draws, these are the teams that everyone would have hoped to be drawn against. If you go through the results of past competitions, you’ll see twelve and thirteen goal aggregate losses. The number of minnows in European Competition was increased by the respective breakups of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, as previously nondescript teams found themselves moved up the pecking order of their newly independent nations. This ultimately led to the creation of preliminary qualifying rounds.

Detailed information on many of the early qualifying rounds’ clubs is not particularly accessible, so all this is really a roundabout way of saying that we’re about to enter a realm of pure speculation and opinion.

Some notable names in the first qualifying round include Polonia Warsaw, the Polish capital’s oldest club, Rosenborg, who were Norwegian champions for thirteen consecutive seasons, former Soviet power Dinamo Minsk, last season’s Champions League surprise Anorthosis Famagusta, Henrik Larsson’s Helsingborg, and 1969 European Cup semi-finalists Spartak Trnava. The tie between Skonto Riga, who have won even more consecutive titles than Rosenborg and Derry City, who humbled IFK Gotenborg a few seasons ago, should also be intriguing.

The second round draw also contains some very interesting match ups and potential match ups. Steaua Bucharest and Ujpest is definitely the biggest in terms of name recognition, although it would probably count as a major shock for Steaua to get knocked out. Other familiar second round teams include financially troubled Red Star Belgrade, Denmark’s Aalborg, who face a potentially tricky tie against Slavija Sarajevo. The Bosnian teams could prove to be an interesting commodity. More Bosnian players have become prominent in Europe, and the national team has been playing well in World Cup qualifying; if their clubs can emulate this success, any potential opponents might be in for some problems.

Since coverage in the U.S. will be limited, there’s going to be a lot of scrounging for highlights and a lot of research. Expect more ‘know your minnows’ posts as the summer goes on.

If you have not seen Daryl’s entry on the front page, UEFA has declared that their experiments with two extra officials, placed behind the goals, will take place during the Europa League next season.

Any experiment, to move beyond theory, will have to be tested in the real world at some point. Running these tests over the course of a highly competitive, season long tournament simply makes the most sense if there is going to be a likelihood of having a contentious decision, in a high pressure atmosphere that the extra officials contribute to.

The big question this raises is whether or not making a major tournament a staging ground for a new procedure affects the integrity of the Europa League games. Ultimately, I don’t think this particular situation is an issue. The two extra officials are only serving as additional eyes in an attempt to have all areas of the pitch as closely watched as possible. If UEFA were experimenting with something, like video replay, that would fundamentally alter the structure of the game, there would be cause for alarm and outrage, but this is, thankfully not the case. We’ve already seen the Champions League parachute clubs, the introduction of group stages, and, finally, the Europa League itself. It should be safe to just sit back and wait for the first qualifying round draw on the 22nd.

Marquee names will abound in the Europa League, but they will not be the kind of stumbling giants like AC Milan or Bayern Munich for whom missing out on the Champions League represents a year in purgatory. A large number of teams that find their European destinies teetering between the two competitions have fallen on the Europa League side of the line. Clubs like Roma, Werder Bremen, Valencia and PSV are accustomed to, and would probably rather be competing in the Champions League, but they cannot pretend that they stand a realistic chance of winning that competition or that they wield the kind of money that ensures perennial qualification. Perhaps I’m hopelessly naïve, but the combination of having a very real chance at a winning a European trophy, and the need to prove themselves after an subpar season should mean that we’ll see a real commitment to winning the Europa League from the outset.

Remaining objective about the team you support is one of the great challenges in football. Even if you aren’t writing about it, there’s always the impulse, as a fan, to view every decision against as a grave injustice, to confuse the affection you have for a player with a realistic assessment of his skills. In short, our hopes sometimes get the best of our reality based expectations. This somewhat schizophrenic conflict has been especially virulent throughout Hertha Berlin’s remarkable season, so it’s with some disappointment that I admit, realistically, I am relieved that Hertha have finished the season with Europa League qualification.

Even though Hertha were not nearly as hapless as their detractors would have you believe, they are an obviously limited side. A defensive unit that proved above average by Bundesliga standards and some intelligent counter attacking was the basis for a lot of narrow league victories. It was not going to win a lot of neutral admirers, but I still don’t know why the nature of Hertha’s success was questioned so often when calling us ugly would have sufficed. At any rate, the prohibitive UEFA Cup campaign demonstrated that these tactics didn’t necessarily translate to European success, although I do expect (or should that be hope for) a stronger showing next season.

Other than fast cash, it’s difficult to see what a Champions League showing that, in all likelihood, end up being a fight to drop into the Europa League would do for the club. I didn’t buy any of the arguments that Hertha potentially performing badly in the Champions League meant that they somehow owed it to the rest of Germany not to qualify, as Bayern Munich is the only team in Germany with a chance of surviving in the ten thousand dollar minimum bet VIP room in the first place. My biggest concern is that a poor showing would undermine the progress that Hertha have made this season and even, in a severe enough panic, cost Lucien Favre his job, which would be a bigger disaster than any on field loss right now.

There’s no doubt that 2009-10 is going to be a stern test for Hertha Berlin; they certainly aren’t going to take anyone by surprise next term. Now that the potential for achievement has been so superbly unearthed, chalking up whatever future successes or failures occur to the crazy old Hertha Berlin rollercoaster ride that human machinations have little to no influence over isn’t going to cut it. As far as Europe is concerned, competing against clubs of a similar stature, absent the three ring circus hype of the Champions League will benefit Hertha no matter what.

From the larger clubs’ point of view, the primary flaw in this format was risk. As everyone knows, a knock out cup tournament is incredibly unpredictable compared to a league season. One bad day in a cup can spell disaster. Few rational people are prepared to argue that Grasshoppers Zurich would be able to defeat Real Madrid on a regular basis, but in the 1978-79 season, a 2-0 victory in Switzerland proved sufficient to knock Madrid out of Europe on away goals. The open draw only compounded this problem, as a big club could be drawn against a difficult opponent very early in the competition, the fate that befell Liverpool when they were knocked out of the European Cup in the first round for two consecutive seasons, by Nottingham Forest and Dinamo Tbilisi, respectively.

Crazy, unexpected things happen in sports, so when sport remained the primary function of playing all these football matches, there was relatively little complaint. The influx of big money into the game, especially television money, in the early 1990s was the impetus towards a rapid shift in priorities. To lose a cup tie was no longer just heartbreak, it was terrible for business. It would be naïve in the extreme to assume that before 1990, European football was as pure as the ancient Olympics, but I maintain that the sheer amount of money that was now involved distorted any sense of proportion. New money combined with the old format created a combination of high stakes gambling and long term business planning. Predictable outcomes are preferable to risk, so any prudent businessman would work to reduce the risk.

The proposed solution is a specter that has remained with us ever since: the breakaway super league. Though this proposal has undergone myriad mutations throughout the years, its early form consisted of a new competition, independent of UEFA and the member clubs’ national associations. The league would also be a closed off structure, free of relegation. An adequate explanation regarding how the prospect of a mid-table super league match between say, Arsenal and Bayern Munich, with nothing whatsoever at stake would be made appealing to viewers or sponsors has never really been offered. The very prospect constituted enough of a menace for UEFA to cave in and institute group play for the final season under the European Cup format.

It should be noted that the format changes were not solely responsible for the state of European competition that we are familiar with today. The initial introduction of the group stage occurred while the financial disparity between the large and small was not as severe. Events were unfolding that would, unfortunately, severely unbalance the playing field in favor of the largest clubs.

The large amounts of television and sponsorship money that poured into the game had the immediate effect of widening the gulf between the big and small leagues. Barcelona and Manchester United were always wealthier than FC Sion and Club Brugge, but the amount of money it was possible to earn in a larger league created an astronomical difference. Combined with the Bosman ruling and the eventual loosened restrictions on foreign players, conditions were ideal for an ever smaller number of clubs to stockpile players with unprecedented voraciousness. In a happy coincidence for the large clubs, the collapse of communism essentially eliminated Eastern European clubs as a competitive danger while making all of their best players available for purchase.

For brevity’s sake, it will suffice to say that Europe’s richest clubs and Europe’s most successful clubs were now one and the same. They felt brazen enough to form the G-14 (expanded to 18 in 2002), a coalition to advance their agenda. By the time they actually got around to forming an official organization, their top priority, the expansion of the Champions League had already been achieved. Things would be rather different from now on.