Europa League Draw

Draw is tomorrow. Would you rather have a tough draw or easy draw? I'll weigh in later.

 

Easy peasy draw, please. With AJ out and goals lacking lately, we'll need every advantage to continue this great little Euro run. Hopefully that last one we let in doesn't have a negative impact on our draw.

 

I'm of the "it really doesn't matter" opinion, since I am happy with the plain and simple fact that Fulham has made to the group stages.

In my view, whether Fulham get an easy or tough draw, the team will be given the opportunity to compete against opposition that is not of the norm.

With that said, I wouldn't necessarily complain if we were given an easy draw though... :wink:

 

We are in pot 3 now, as Aston Villa, Zenit, Litex Lovech and Methalist Kharkiv all went out, meaning we move up in the seedings. It's explained here : http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uef ... l2009.html

 

Here are the pots for tomorrow's group stage draw:

(I'm pretty sure these are in coefficient order, with Fulham fortunately just above the cusp of pots 3 and 4.)

Tough to say much at this point, considering we could wind up grouped with Valencia/Everton/Genoa (ouch) or Panathinaikos/Lille/Ventspils (not so bad) based on the luck of the draw. I guess we'll see soon enough.

Pot 1:
Shakhtar Donetsk
Werder Bremen
Villarreal
Roma
PSV Eindhoven
Sporting CP
Hamburg
Benfica
Valencia
Panathinaikos
Ajax
Steaua Bucureşti

Pot 2:
Fenerbahçe
Basel
Lille
Celtic
Everton
Club Brugge
Heerenveen
Galatasaray
Anderlecht
Austria Wien
Copenhagen
Lazio

Pot 3:
Hertha Berlin
Sparta Prague
Dinamo Bucureşti
AEK Athens
Slavia Prague
Levski Sofia
Athletic Bilbao
Partizan
Hapoel Tel Aviv
Twente
Dinamo Zagreb
Fulham

Pot 4:
CSKA Sofia
Toulouse
CFR Cluj
Genoa
Rapid Wien
Timişoara
BATE
Nacional
Red Bull Salzburg
Sturm Graz
Ventspils
Sheriff Tiraspol

 

I'd like for us to get teams like Valencia in our group. I think that the tougher the draw, the better for our experience which will translate into success in the Premier League. Plus, if we happened to get through in a tough group, our confidence could soar. Of course it could go the other way too, but I think the experience of playing in the Mestalla in Europe can't be passed up.


Either way, I'm with you guys and don't really care, but the tough draw is my preference.

 

Thers no such thing as "Easy" games any more this is European football, take every match as it comes and like Don say's just hope we are compedative, a poor display will only end in getting knocked OUT!

COYW'S

 

good draw i must say. dont see why we can't advance from it, but it wont be a cake walk.

and another trip to Eastern Europe for our English friends. So jealous!

And some trivia: guess which nations have the most clubs in the group stages?

Romania, Austria, and Holland. Who'd a thunk it?

 

Everton should get an easier draw, since they were in a higher pot than Fulham.

I'm not crazy about this, mainly because of how Basel romped (8-2 aggregate win over Baku) in the playoff round. There weren't going to be any weak teams coming into the group out of Pot A (and getting Roma, as opposed to, like, PSV, increases the chances of games on TV), but we could've done better out of Pot B.

 

I echoed what some of you have already said on my blog this morning, it does not matter to me what happens from this point forward, I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

I joked on facebook yesterday with my friend from Houston, who covers the Dynamo for a radio station there, that it would be neat to draw Roma since he's a huge Roma supporter. I got my wish 24 hours later.

I see this as a 3 way race for 2nd place in the group. It should be fun. Hopefully Gol TV or DirecTV will pick up the group stage as has been rumored off and on over the past several weeks.

 

Here ya go...

Thurs 17 Sept: PFC CSKA Sofia v Fulham

Thurs 1 Oct: Fulham v FC Basel

Thurs 22 Oct: Fulham v AS Roma

Thurs 5 Nov: AS Roma v Fulham

Thurs 3 Dec: Fulham v PFC CSKA Sofia

Wed 16 Dec: FC Basel v Fulham

 

7 points out of the first 3 matches would be awesome. Personally, I'd be happy with 4 or 6 points.

 

Love the draw. We got an easy 3 teams after Roma and we get to play Roma back to back. Let's be clear, Roma is the best team in the group stages and are probably better than Milan who are in the CL.Those games will be extremely tough, but I'm optimistic and think that if we can pull out a win in one of those 2 games, we could win the group.


Man, I'm so psyched to have our team get the chance to play against a team like Roma.

 

I like the draw... yeah we have Roma, but that maybe good for us. If we can get wins against Basel and CSKA Sofia and they draw against each other on the first round through the group, we should be able to put a strong team against Roma for one match and then evaluate whether we should rest our players for the second game or if we have a legitimate chance at taking points from them playing a strong team again.

Ultimately, I think how we do here is going to depend a lot on the league games we find mixed around these games.

 

Don. You're forgetting a couple things in your "it's not 2 matches a week until Christmas."

- Sep 5 International Fixture
- Sep 9 International Fixture
- Sep 13 Premier League
- Sep 17 Europa Cup
- Sep 19 Premier League
- Sep 23 Carling Cup
- Sep 26 Premier League
- Oct 1 Europa Cup
- Oct 3 Premier League
- Oct 10 International Fixture
- Oct 14 International Fixture
- Oct 19 Premier League
- Oct 22 Europa Cup
- Oct 24 Premier League
- Oct 28 Carling Cup
- Oct 31 Premier League
- Nov 5 Europa Cup
- Nov 7 Premier League
- Nov 19 Premier League
- Nov 24 Premier League
- Nov 31 Premier League
- Dec 2 Carling Cup
- Dec 3 Europa Cup
- Dec 5 Premier League
- Dec 12 Premier League
- Dec 16 Europa Cup
- Dec 19 Premier League
- Dec 26 Premier League
- Dec 28 Premier League

Reschedule of the following:
- Dec 2 Carling Cup (likely to Dec 9)
- Dec 15 Premier League

I can't figure out what's happening on Nov 14. Regardless, we have a little breather in November, but for a big chunk of our team, it's 7 games in September, 9 in October, 5 in November, and 8 in December.