We’ll Always Have Otaci

The UEFA Cup sure has been fun, hasn’t it? A few clubs I’d never heard of, a bit of coverage from the Irish press where Hertha were talked about as near-giants of the European game. Good times. And now, we’re in the group stages.

I have to say, I’m not hugely confident about getting farther than this.

In Group B we’re drawn against Benfica of Portugal, Greek champions Olympiacos, Turkish heavyweights Galatasaray, and Metalist Kharkiv of the Ukranian league. None of those are easy games- in fact, I’d call all of them pretty difficult.

I suppose that a bright side we can look on is that the home games are likely to be fairly lucrative- Benfica on the 23rd of October and Galatasaray on December 3. While neither of them are the AC Milan draw that Dieter Hoeness was hoping for, Benfica is still a big name in football, while the situation for the Galatasaray game is likely to bear a resemblance to whenever the US play Mexico in a major US city- technically, it’s a home game, but there are likely to be as much, if not more, supporters for the away team.

That also means the away games are in Greece and Ukraine- not easy places to go.

So, yeah. Things could work out well for us, and we could make it through. But with the top 3 likely to be those first 3 names out of the draw, I’m not hugely optimistic.

We’ll always have Otaci.

Category: europe

Tags: europe

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