At our sister site EPLTalk.com and on all the major soccer sites, the buzz is about the proposed purchase of Kaka by Manchester City. Representatives from Manchester City have traveled to Milan and a bid has been made, reportedly in the region of £100 million, for the 26-year-old midfielder. This would more than double the previous world record transfer fee of £46 million when Zinedine Zidane was sold to Real Madrid by Juventus in 2001.

Is this sort of deal possible? Well, certainly the new owners of Manchester City have that sort of money to splash out. That is not in question. However, one has to wonder why Kaka would want to move to Manchester City right now and not in the summer, if he chooses to move at all. He has previously stated that he is happy at Milan and he does have a deal running through 2013. That said, the reported £500,000 a week wage packet being offered might be enough for even someone as principled as Kaka to think about jumping at.

From a football standpoint, it would be a step down for Kaka. Mainly in the fact that Man City are currently closer to the bottom of the table than they are the top and it is looking unlikely that they will secure any sort of European action for next season. He may be willing to become part of a rebuilding project during the summer but I would be supremely shocked if a move occurred in the next couple of weeks.

City need to focus on staying up and can start retooling in the summer once their top-flight status is preserved. I believe this is why Mark Hughes has been going for familiar names and experienced Premier League talent like Scott Parker and Craig Bellamy. They may not be the ones that will have City challenging for Champions League glory but they are quite capable of turning their current season around. I also think that The Citizens could use another defender to shore things up.

Either way, the next couple of weeks will be interesting for Manchester City fans.

Sticking with actual completed deals, here’s a quick rundown of some of the notable transfers thus far.

• Brazilian striker Brandao has joined Marseille from Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk on a 3.5 year contract. Brandao, who is believed to have cost between 6 and 8 million Euros, could make his debut for the club in Saturday’s league clash at home to Le Havre. He is expected to wear the number 9 shirt. Marseille face FC Twente in the UEFA Cup Round of 32.
• Speaking of FC Twente, they have sold defender Rob Wielaert to Dutch rivals Ajax for an undisclosed transfer fee. Wielaert had developed into a key player for Twente and they had hoped to keep him at the club but the lure of Ajax was too strong.
• Sampdoria have signed Giampaolo Pazzini in a 9 million Euro transfer deal. The striker joins from fellow UEFA Cup contenders ACF Fiorentina, who will receive forward Emiliano Bonazzoli on loan as part of the deal. Bonazzoli had scored four times in five UEFA Cup games while with Sampdoria, but failed to find the net in nine league outings. His move to Fiorentina could become permanent in the summer. Fiorentina face Ajax in the UEFA Cup Round of 32 next month, while Sampdoria come up against Ukrainian club FC Metalist Kharkiv.
• Metalist have been busy preparing for that clash by signing a couple of players. Defensive midfielder Walter Acevedo from Argentine club San Lorenzo joins Ukrainian Under-21 international midfielder Denys Oliynyk (signed from Dynamo Kyiv) and defender Andriy Berezovchuk (signed from FC Metalurh Donetsk) as new faces for the stretch run.

Real Madrid CF have announced a pre-transfer window agreement with Ajax for striker Klaas Jan Huntelaar. The move is intended to cover the long-term injury of Ruud van Nistelrooy, who has undergone surgery as I reported earlier. The Spanish champions have been chasing Huntelaar for the past two seasons and are pleased to have finally worked out a deal (that could rise to 27million euros) with Ajax for the 25-year-old.Huntelaar will become the sixth Dutch player at Madrid, along with Van Nistelrooy, Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart and Royston Drenthe. I think this is a fantastic move for Real Madrid as both of their main strikers Raul and RVN are over 30 and they have used Saviola only sparingly since signing him from Barcelona. Madrid have been struggling in La Liga, at least by their high standards. They are currently in fourth place after a 3-1 defeat to Getafe at the weekend, and have also struggled in the Champions League. They lost home and away to Juventus and had narrow wins over BATE and Zenit.

The hope is that Huntelaar’s arrival in January will provide a spark to the club and that he will be able to keep up his phenomenal strike rate. Huntelaar burst onto the scene with SC Heerenveen scoring 34 goals in 46 games. Since moving to Ajax, he has totalled 79 goals in 97 games. He also scored 18 goals in 22 games for the Dutch U-21 side before moving to the senior team where he has collected another 10 goals in 18 appearances.

ESPN’s Dominic Raynor has written an article outlining what he feels are the reasons behind the move.

As intriguing as the current edition of the Champions League may be, there’s a chance the 2009-2010 tournament could be one of the strangest, parity-rich events in football history. Seems someone has taken the snow globe that is European football, given it a good shake and the flakes aren’t landing where people expect.

The tables in Germany, Holland, Portugal and even Italy don’t resemble what we’ve come to expect as status quo, and as a result, the trickle-down to next year’s Champions League could be  fascinating.  Not only could you have some very fresh names, faces and kits in the fray, but they’ll be usurping some very established entities, including a couple of past champions.

Starting in Italy, where Inter Milan is in the lead with 24 points, you’ve got a gaggle of teams behind Mourinho’s men that includes Napoli, Udinese and Genoa, all within four points of the top, and all within at least a shot of getting into the qualifying rounds. And standing on the outside looking in would be Juventus, Roma and Fiorentina, three teams that are in the hunt in this year’s Champions League.

Not even England is immune to this phenomenon. Despite the Big Four of Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United being entrenched as the top four, Hull City had a prominent spot near the top of the table for much of the opening weeks, and they’re still within reach in sixth position with 20 points, only one shy of the top four.

The best story might be in Germany, where Hoffenheim has been at the tippity-top of the Bundesliga alone until this weekend. Hoffenheim may be in there for the duration; it’s won five in a row and now shares the lead with Bayer Leverkeusen. Bayern Munich is charging hard and it will be tremendous to watch if Hoffenheim can find a way to hang on.

Az Alkamaar, meanwhile, took over the lead in the Dutch Eredivisie and has the lone automatic Champions League group stage spot right now. Behind AZ? Well, sure, Ajax is there, but so is NAC Breda and Groningen. Breda and Ajax are tied on points with Az, and Groningen two points out.

In Portugal, if things ended today, F.C. Porto and Sporting would be OUT altogether. OUT. Sporting, which has already earned a spot in the knockout round, is five points out, and Porto’s miserable start has it even further back. Leixoes is in the lead. Who? Leixoes. Nacional da Madeira is three out and Maritimo five back. Benfica is the lone giant in the top three. And Benfica is somewhat woeful as far as big clubs go.

It’s early, but it’s fun to look ahead and acknowledge what these minnows are doing. The longer it goes like this, the more fun it becomes. And perhaps next August, you just might seeing a Champions League draw with clubs such as Hoffenheim, Az Alkamaar and Leixoes joining Inter, Chelsea and Barcelona in Pot 1. Now how much fun would that be?

UEFA held the draw for the UEFA Cup group stage today and some fascinating pairings emerged. Both Martin Jol and Steve McClaren will take their new clubs back to England as FC Twente will face Manchester City and Jol’s Hamburg will take on Aston Villa.

This year’s groups are looking really tough and the field contains eight former UEFA Cup winners, and six former European Champion Clubs’ Cup/UEFA Champions League winners.

The top three teams in each group qualify for the knockout stages, to be joined by the eight third-placed teams in the Champions League groups. Here are the groupings with my picks to advance. A couple of potential upsets are on the cards. I think Ajax might not make the Round of 32 with their form being so inconsistent. They’ve been drawn in with some very good teams and it’s going to be tight to see who goes on.

Potential for upset exists in Groups B and E as well where Olympiakos and Portsmouth might struggle. Portsmouth have had a poor start to the season and are looking shaky at the back. Olympiacos are simply in a tough group and may struggle to beat out Hertha Berlin, Benfica and Galatasaray (a team featuring ex-Liverpool attackers Harry Kewell and Milan Baros).

I’ve picked Rosenborg to advance as they are nearing the end of their season and should be in good form/shape and as they are not likely to win their domestic league, they will look to these games to give their season some positivity.

Group A:
Schalke 04 (Germany)
Paris St Germain (France)
Manchester City (England)
Racing Santander (Spain)
FC Twente (Netherlands)

Group B:
Benfica (Portugal)
Hertha Berlin (Germany)
Galatasaray (Turkey)
Olympiacos (Greece)
Metalist Kharkiv (Ukraine)

Group C:
Sevilla (Spain)
VfB Stuttgart (Germany)
Sampdoria (Italy)
Standard Liège (Belgium)
Partizan Belgrade (Serbia)

Group D:
Spartak Moscow (Russia)
Udinese (Italy)
Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
Tottenham Hotspur (England)
NEC Nijmegen (Netherlands)

Group E:
AC Milan (Italy)
SC Braga (Portugal)
Wolfsburg (Germany)
Heerenveen (Netherlands)
Portsmouth (England)

Group F:
Hamburg (Germany)
Aston Villa (England)
Slavia Prague (Czech Republic)
Ajax (Netherlands)
MSK Zilina (Slovakia)

Group G:
Valencia (Spain)
FC Copenhagen (Denmark)
Rosenborg (Norway)
Club Brugge (Belgium)
St Etienne (France)

Group H:
CSKA Moscow (Russia)
Deportivo La Coruna (Spain)
Feyenoord (Netherlands)
AS Nancy (France)
Lech Poznan (Poland)

Though Paris St Germain were in a relegation battle last season, they did manage to win the French League Cup, which qualifies them for the UEFA Cup competition. In preparing for their season, PSG has made some bold moves in the transfer market.

Their first signing of the summer was Ludovic Giuly from AS Roma. The 32-year-old left Italy after just one season and returns to Ligue 1 where his career began. He had six productive seasons at AS Monaco before leaving for Barcelona. Giuly’s Champions League experience will prove valuable as PSG embark on their UEFA Cup campaign.

PSG have also managed to sign Claude Makelele from Chelsea. He insists it has long been his dream to end his career in the French capital though he believes he can continue to play for some time yet despite being 35. Makelele’s performances as a defensive midfielder have caused many to label the role of the holding midfielder as the “Makelele role”. He was instrumental in Chelsea’s run to the Champions League final though he started less frequently in the domestic league. He has hopefully been able to successfully retire from international duties (he’d previously attempted to retire on two occassions only to be called up for duty again) and will bring a wealth of poise and experience to a rebuilding PSG team. He has been named team captain for this coming season.

Defender Lilian Thuram had hopes of joining PSG too but the club recently stated that they expect Thuram to announce his retirement from football. A heart condition was discovered while Thuram was undergoing a medical with PSG. Thuram’s brother died from the same condition and PSG president Charles Villeneuve has stated that he believes Thuram should not risk suffering a similar fate.

Villeneuve already has his eyes set on a replacement signing – AC Milan defender Alessandro Nesta. Nesta, who is 32, has three years left on his contract and has spent the past six years with AC Milan.

It’s not all good times for PSG, they have lost two players to different Premier League teams. Bernard Meny has departed for newly promoted Hull City where he will be reunited with manager Phil Brown. Mendy and Brown worked together previously when Mendy had a loan spell with Bolton Wanderers.

Also moving to England is teenage prospect David Ngog, who is the cousin of Olympique Lyonnais defender Jean-Alain Boumsong. Ngog came up through PSG’s academy broke into the first team in 2006-07 appearing four times as a substitute. He played in 14 league games last season and scored one goal.

Meanwhile, in Holland new Ajax boss boss Marco van Basten has told eight first-team squad members they are surplus to requirements at the Amsterdam ArenA. Former Newcastle winger Albert Luque has been told to hit the bricks as have Michael Krohn-Dehli, Edgar Manucharyan, Robbert Schilder, Nicolae Mitea and Leonardo. Mitchell Donald and Vurnon Anita are available on loan. Midfielder Donald, who is only 19, joined Ajax following spells at amateur sides FC Bijlmer and Zeeburgia. He is still in the ‘prospect’ category and will look to gain experience with another club.

Also leaving the club is defender John Heitinga who has moved to Club Atlético de Madrid for a fee of 10m Euros. Ajax have taken that money and put it toward a few new signings.

Their biggest splash was for Serbian international Miralem Sulejmani arrives from Eredivisie rivals SC Heerenveen in a deal worth up to 16.25m Euros. The 19-year-old striker was voted the best young player in the Dutch league last season.

Ajax hit up another Eredivise rival, PSV Eindhoven, to sign U-21 midfielder Ismail Aissati for an undisclosed fee. The 19-year-old joins the Amsterdam-based club on a four-year contract. Also joining Ajax is former Barcelona central defender Oleguer. He will be looked upon to fill the void left by Heitinga’s departure and though no fee was announced it is rumoured to be in the area of 3m Euros and could rise to as much as 5m depending what Ajax achieve during Oleguer’s time at the club.
Finally, one of the busier clubs in the Premier League this transfer season has been Tottenham Hotspur. They’ve just completed the signing of midfielder David Bentley from Blackburn Rovers for a £15m fee that could rise to £17m.

The club has also signed forward Giovani Dos Santos, midfielder Luca Modric and goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes while moving out forward Robbie Keane, goalkeeper Paul Robinson, defender Pascal Chimbonda, midfielders Teemu Tainio and Steed Malbranque. Deals are still rumoured to be in the works for defender Younes Kaboul and striker Dimitar Berbatov, though the latter would be a massive loss for the club. Manchester United have made an official bid for Berbatov but it was quickly rejected.

Tottenham will compete in the UEFA Cup this season thanks to their League Cup win last season and they could certainly use Berbatov’s silky skills and ability to hold up the ball and create for his teammates. However, should he be sold the money will likely be reinvested as Spurs are rumoured to be chasing Russian playmaker Andrei Arshavin, who wants to leave Zenit St Petersburg. They have also been linked to strikers Diego Milito and, according to the BBC, have held talks with Spartak Moscow striker Roman Pavlyuchenko.

If Spurs can land either of those two players they should provide a big boost going into the season. I rate Bentley quite highly and combined with the other signings that they’ve made, I am picking Spurs to make a big improvement on their 11th place showing from last year and I also think they will make a good run in the UEFA Cup.

A quick shout out to Dutch side FC Twente (nicknamed The Tukkers or The Reds) for reaching the Champions League for the first time in their history. Like a more famous team nicknamed The Reds (Liverpool FC), “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is loudly sung in the stadium before every kick-off. Twente are based in the city of Enschede, which has a population base of about 150,000, but take their name from the Twente region.

Twente recently beat out Ajax in the playoffs to gain a berth in the Champions League third qualifying round. Their scoring leader this season was Blaise Kufo, a Swiss football player of Congolese (DRC) origin, who bagged 22 goals. Blaise has led Twente in scoring four consecutive seasons since arriving from Hannover 96 of the Bundesliga.

The win over Ajax means they will only need to win one two-legged tie to make the group stage and have a nice cash infusion into the club. This comes on the heels of an expansion to their stadium which started in January 2008 and is expected to be ready by September 2008, at the start of the new season. The expansion will take the capacity to 24,000 and there are also future plans to expand the stadium to 40,000 spectators.

Current FC Twente coach Fred Rutten is leaving the club and take up the reins at German side Schalke in the summer so a new manger will need to be found and there is some speculation as to who the new man could be.

Articles linking Steve McClaren with the manager’s job at Dutch club FC Twente have increased since his agent admitted it was an option for the former Middlesbrough and English national team coach. No less an authority than Sir Bobby Robson has suggested the move would be good for McClaren.

However, despite all the speculation Twente spokesman told SkySports that they have no intention of hiring the former Middlesbrough boss. “Steve McClaren was in the ground because he wanted to watch a good game of football in the Netherlands. We have not decided on a new coach yet. We have just qualified for the Champions League and it will be decided in time.”

Let me start this by saying that I expected Bayern to progress but not without a fight. My reasoning was that Zenit St Petersburg would be missing a number of key personnel including the suspended Andrei Arshavin, Radek Šírl and Fernando Ricksen, as well as Nicolas Lombaerts and Kim Dong Jin through injury. This left them with only two available defenders – Ivica Križanac and Aleksandr Anyukov. Their back four for yesterday’s match was rounded out by Roman Shirokov, a midfielder recently converted to the centre-half position, and 38-year-old midfielder Olexandr Gorshkov who was deployed as a makeshift left-back.

Well, as it turns out, Zenit turned in an amazing performance and thrashed Bayern 4-0 at home. Of course, Bayern may argue that the pitch played a part in the result as Zenit’s pitch has been in such bad condition since the start of the Russian season in March that league officials considered banning the stadium for domestic matches.

However, to blame the loss on the solely on the pitch conditions would be dishonest. Bayern had plenty of chances and simply did not make the most of them whereas Zenit did. Bayern could have had a lead within the opening 3 minutes but Miroslav Klose’s shot was cleared heroically by Shirokov as his keeper Vyacheslav Malafeev had be cleanly beaten. Just a minute or two later the Petrovsky Stadium erupted as Pavel Pogrebnyak delivered on his pre-match promise to take care of Zenit’s scoring by blasting a 25-metre free-kick through the wall and past Oliver Kahn. It was poor defending by Bayern as the wall did not remain compact. Ribery, for one, broke away and turned his body, which opened space for the shot to rocket through. Schweinsteiger also turned away rather than staying square to the shot.

It went from bad to worse for Bayern as it was 2-0 on 39 minutes as Alejandro Dominguez played in Konstantin Zyrianov, who shimmied past Martín Demichelis beautifully before steering the ball into the far corner. Lukas Podolski and Christian Lell came on for Zé Roberto and Marcell Jansen at half-time, a move which almost paid dividends when Podolski set up Luca Toni to force a reflex save from Malafeev. Bastian Schweinsteiger also tested the keeper with a strong shot.

Zenit continued their calm, assured play through the seond half adding another goal from Pogrebnyak and one from Victor Fayzulin to hand Bayern a loss that equals their heaviest previous defeat in European club competition (they’d previously suffered 4 goal losses to Ajax, Eintracht Frankfurt and FC Copenhagen).

Zenit will face Rangers in the final on the 14th of May in Manchester. Rangers advanced to the final after holding their nerve through a scoreless draw and then winning the penalty shootout 4-2. Fiorentina had 27 shots on goal in this game alone and will feel a bit hard done by but their finishing was simply not up to par in either of the matches. I don’t feel that Rangers played particularly well in either match but considering their injury/suspension problems they did what they had to in order to advance.

You could argue that with the match in the UK that Rangers might hold a slight “home” advantage. However, any team that beats Bayern 4-0 must be the favourites going into the final and I am certainly not going to bet against Zenit again anytime soon. It’ll be an interesting matchup of two experienced and well-respected managers in Walter Smith & Dick Advocaat.

One major disappointment for Zenit is that Pogrebnyak, booked for an innocuous looking aerial challenge with Lucio, will not feature in the final. Pogrebnyak is the tournament’s top scorer with 11 goals. Zenit manager Dick Advocaat defended his decision to not substitute Pogrebnyak, who is prone to picking up yellow cards, after he had scored the last goal in the 73rd minute. “I had to keep the strongest team on the pitch because you can never count Bayern out,” Advocaat said. “We all know what happened in their match against Getafe.”

As I’ve written about before, Pogrebnyak is a rising star and it will be interesting to see if he remains with Zenit over the summer over if one of Europe’s rich clubs like Manchester United come calling. I think he’d be a good fit for a club like United who lack an out-and-out centre forward.

After starting out in the Spartak Moscow system, Pogrebnyak’s career stalled for a couple of seasons before his breakthrough with FC Tom’ Tomsk in 2006 as he scored 13 goals in 26 matches and became one of the favorites of the local fans. In 51 official matches for Zenit, Pogrebnyak has scored 28 goals. In the Russian Championship he has scored 12 goals in 30 matches. Zenit signed him to a 3-year deal in 2006 so he’ll be looking for his next contract this summer and Zenit fans will hope the club can look up this goal-machine for a few more seasons. Zenit are backed by the seemingly limitless resources of Russian energy giant Gazprom and will make their Champions League debut in September so those may play a part in any decision Pogrebnyak makes about his future.

With so much focus on the English Premier League and its dominance of the Champions League, I wanted to switch gears and take a look at some of the other leagues in Europe.

We start in Germany, where FC Bayern München took their first step towards a treble with a win in the DFB Pokal (German Cup) final against Borussia Dortmund. The win was a record 14th win in the competition for Bayern and set up a likely domestic double. Having just swept Dortmund aside less than a week ago by a 5-0 scoreline, one might have expected a similar rout to be on the cards but Dortmund gave Bayern a good fight before losing in extra-time. Luca Toni was again the hero for Bayern scoring both goals and taking his total to 35 in all competitions. Bayern are currently 10 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and unless they suffer a major collapse, look to be a good bet to returning to Champions League football next season. What remains to be seen is if they will return as UEFA Cup winners. They face FC Zenit St. Petersburg in the first leg of their semi-final this Thursday (April 24th).

Moving to Spain, Real Madrid can wrap up a second consecutive La Liga crown with a win next weekend against Athletic Bilbao and if both Villareal and Barcelona drop points in their matches. Barcelona do not look set to poise any threat and will be in tough this week against Manchester United in Champions League semi-final action. Real will be focused on winning the league again and even without strike partner Ruud van Nistelrooy, captain Raul has been finding the net on a regular basis.

In France, Girondins Bordeaux fought through a water-logged pitch to record a 1-0 win at strugglers Toulouse on Sunday. The win leaves Bordeaux four points behind Olympique Lyon. Lyon, chasing a seventh successive title, won 2-1 at Racing Strasbourg on Saturday and have 71 points ahead of Bordeaux on 67 with four matches remaining.

In Portugal, FC Porto wrapped up the league title two weeks ago with five games left as they had an unassailable 18-point lead (now stretched to 20) over Vitoria Guimaraes. They won the title with some style, crushing Estrela Amadora 6-0 at home to claim their third successive Portuguese league title. Perennial Champions League competitors and biggest rivals, Benfica, are struggling this season in fourth place currently 24 points back of Porto. Benfica are only four points back of Vitoria for second-place but with only three games to go are not making up any ground. They lost again at the weekend, to FC Porto by a 2-0 score. Lisandro Lopez scored twice for Porto to increase his tally for the season to 24 goals. Benfica, without a win in the last three league matches, ended with 10 men after midfielder Augustin Binya received a second yellow card in stoppage time.

Following up on my prior post on coaching changes, news has emerged today that yet another change has occured. Ronald Koeman, the former Ajax and Benfica boss, has resigned his role as manager of PSV Eindhoven to take on the vacant managerial role for Spanish club Valencia. The La Liga side are thought to have reached a financial agreement with their Dutch counterparts for compensation.

Reports are also saying that former Tottenham Hotspur boss Martin Jol has already held talks with PSV, the reigning Dutch champions, about taking over as manager now that Koeman has decided to move on.

Koeman is the eighth coach to part company with a UEFA Champions League contender since the beginning of the group stage, following the departures of Albert Emon at Olympique de Marseille, Chelsea’s José Mourinho, Gheorghe Hagi from Steaua Bucure?ti, Anatoliy Demyanenko at Dynamo Kyiv, Sevilla’s Juande Ramos, Rosenborg’s Knut Tørum and Valencia’s Sánchez Flores.

As I mentioned last week, we’re going to take a look at the UEFA Cup, this companion competition to the Champions League. The UEFA Cup evolved from the old Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was founded in 1955, two weeks after the founding of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup.

The original tournament lasted three years, with matches timed to coincide with trade fairs and involved teams from Barcelona, Basle, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Lausanne, Leipzig, London, Milan and Zagreb. Barcelona, using players purely from FC Barcelona, beat a London representative side 8-2 on aggregate in the final.

In 1972 the tournament was renamed the UEFA Cup to reflect that the competition was now run by UEFA and no longer associated with the trade fairs. Tottenham Hotspur were the initial winners of the renamed competition.

The current UEFA Cup tournament is open to teams finishing in leading positions behind the champions in their domestic top flights, the winners of national cup competitions, the winners of the League Cup in certain countries, the eleven winners of the final matches in the UEFA Intertoto Cup, and three clubs from UEFA’s Fair Play League.

The tournament starts with three knockout qualifying rounds held in July and August. Participants from associations ranked 18 and lower enter the first qualifying round, and participants from associations ranked 9-18 join them in the second qualifying round. In addition, three places in the first qualifying round are reserved for the Fair Play winners, and eleven places in the second qualifying round are reserved for the UEFA Intertoto Cup winners.

The tournament used to be a straight knockout competition but the format was changed in 2004/05, however, when for the first time a group stage was introduced. Winners of the qualifying rounds join teams from the associations ranked 1-13 in the first knockout round. In addition, losers in the third qualifying round of the Champions League also enter this round, and another place is reserved for the UEFA Cup title-holders. There are 80 teams total in this round.

After the first knockout round, the 40 survivors enter a group phase, with the clubs being drawn into eight groups of five each. Unlike the Champions League group phase, the UEFA Cup group phase is played in a single round-robin format, with each club playing two home and two away games. The top three teams in each group advance, where they are joined by the eight third-place teams in the Champions League group phase. The winners, runners-up and third-placed teams from each section advance to the last 32 where they are joined by the eight third-placed clubs from the UEFA Champions League group stage. Here, the traditional two-match knockout format resumes, until the final.

After the group stage there is a winter break. From this point, knockout play resumes, with two-legged ties leading to the one-off final, which is held at a neutral ground meeting UEFA’s criteria for a four star stadium. This season The City of Manchester Stadium, which seats 47,000 fans, will stage the 2007/08 UEFA Cup final on May 14th 2008.

Here are the matchups for the first knockout round which will be played over two legs on September 20th and October 4th 2007. I think there are some dynamite match-ups that were tough to pick a winner for, especially the Lens – Copenhagen fixture. In the end, I think Copenhagen’s European experience will come through. In what would be an upset I think that Crvena Zvezda could get knocked out by Polish side Groclin Dyskobolia. The Serbs have been in turmoil so far this season and went so far as to fire coach Boško Djurovski and replace him with Milorad Kosanovic. The goals have been in short supply for the Serbian side but they are hoping that recently signed striker Nenad Jestrovic, who scored 55 goals in 79 appearances for Anderlecht during a four-year spell with the Belgian side, will bolster a forward line that has been poor in the finishing department.

Ajax have been handed a tricky tie against Dinamo Zagreb but I expect them to come through. The FC Twente – Getafe tie also looks promising but I think the Spanish side is just a bit stronger at the moment. All of the English clubs involved (Tottenham, Everton, Bolton, Blackburn) have received favourable ties and should advance to the group stage.

(My picks to advance are highlighted)
FC Midtjylland (Denmark) v Lokomotiv Moscow (Russia)
FC Groningen (Netherlands) v Fiorentina (Italy)
Rabotnicki Kometal (Macedonia) v Bolton (England)
AEK Athens (Greece) v SV Red Bull (Austria)
Nurnberg (Germany) v Rapid Bucaresti (Romania)
Everton (England) v FC Metalist Kharkiv (Ukraine)
Zenit St Petersburg (Russia) v Standard Liege (Belgium)
Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) v Uniao Leiria (Portugal)
Villarreal (Spain) v BATE (Belarus)
FC Sion (Switzerland) v Galatasaray (Turkey)
Atletico Madrid (Spain) v Kayseri Erciye (Turkey)
Bordeaux (France) v Tampere United (Finland)
Panathinaikos (Greece) v Artmedia Bratisl (Slovakia)
Sparta Prague (Czech Republic) v Odense BK (Denmark)
FC Zurich (Switzerland) v Empoli (Italy)
Sochaux (France) v Panionios (Greece)
Rapid Vienna (Austria) v Anderlecht (Belgium)
Pacos Ferreira (Portugal) v AZ (Netherlands)
Sampdoria (Italy) v AaB Alborg (Denmark)
Spartak Moscow (Russia) v BK Hacken (Sweden)
Hammarby (Sweden) v Braga (Portugal)
Larissa (Greece) v Blackburn (England)
Mlada Boleslav (Czech Republic) v Palermo (Italy)
Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) v Ajax (Netherlands)
Rennes (France) v Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria)
SK Brann (Norway) v Club Brugge (Belgium)
Bayern Munich (Germany) v Belenenses (Portugal)
Aberdeen (Scotland) v Dnipro (Ukraine)
Heerenveen (Netherlands) v Helsingborgs IF (Sweden)
Toulouse (France) v CSKA Sofia (Bulgaria)
Hamburg (Germany) v Litex Lovech (Bulgaria)
FK Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) v Basle (Switzerland)
FK Austria Magna (Austria) v Valerenga (Norway)
AIK Solna (Sweden) v Hapoel Tel Aviv (Israel)
Aris Salonika (Greece) v Real Zaragoza (Spain)
Dinamo Bucuresti (Romania) v IF Elfsborg (Sweden)
Tottenham Hotspur (England) v Anorthosis Famagusta (Cyprus)
Lens (France) v FC Copenhagen (Denmark)
Getafe (Spain) v FC Twente (Netherlands)
Groclin Dyskobolia (Poland) v Crvena Zvezda (Serbia)