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)

The UEFA Cup first-round draw was held on Friday and there are a number of interesting new faces in the competition. One of those teams is Dutch side FC Twente, who as we’ve detailed in previous posts, is now coached by former England boss Steve McClaren. Twente, who were entered into the UEFA Cup after they were soundly defeated by Arsenal in Champions League qualifying, have been drawn against French club Rennes.

Two early favourites have to be six-times European champions AC Milan and Sevilla, who won the UEFA Cup in successive seasons (2006 and 2007) under coach Juande Ramos (now with Tottenham Hotspur). AC Milan face Swiss outfit FC Zurich in the opening round while Sevilla start out against FC Salzburg of Austria.

The first-leg ties will be played on September 18th with the return legs taking place on October 2nd. The 40 teams that progress from this round will entered into the group stage of the competition.

Here are the results in full (my predicted winners are bolded):

AC Milan v FC Zurich
Politehnica Timisoara v Partizan Belgrade
Hertha Berlin v St Patricks
Banik Ostrava v Spartak Moscow
Metalist Kharkiv v Besiktas
Portsmouth v Guimaraes
Kayserispor v PSG
Sevilla v SV Red Bull Salzburg
Wolfsburg v Rapid Bucuresti
Sampdoria v FBK Kaunas
Maritimo v Valencia
Dinamo Zagreb v Sparta Prague
Manchester City v Omonia Nicosia
Young Boys v Club Brugge
AS Nancy v Motherwell
Everton v Standard Liege
Napoli v Benfica
AC Bellinzona v Galatasaray
NEC v Dinamo Bucuresti
Racing Santander v FC Honka
APOEL Nicosia v Schalke 04
Litex Lovech v Aston Villa
FK Austria Magna v Lech Poznan
Vitoria Setubal v Heerenveen
SK Brann v Deportivo La Coruna
Slavia Prague v Vaslui
Slaven Koprivnica v CSKA Moscow
Brondby v Rosenborg
Cherno More v VfB Stuttgart
Rennes v FC Twente
Ajax v Borac
Tottenham v Wisla Krakow
FC Copenhagen v FC Moscow
MSK Zilina v Levski Sofia
Borussia Dortmund v Udinese
Braga v Artmedia Petrzalka
Feyenoord v Kalmar FF
Hamburg v Unirea Urziceni
Hapoel Tel-Aviv v Saint Etienne
FC Nordsjaelland v Olympiacos

Benfica have completed their fourth signing of the summer by agreeing a one-year loan deal for Spanish winger Jose Antonio Reyes. The 24-year-old makes the move from Atletico Madrid, with the Lisbon club also having the option to buy the player at the end of his loan spell. Benfica coach Quique Sanchez Flores continues to overhaul his squad as The Eagles look to soar once again after a poor season by their standards.

For the first time in a few season, Benfica failed to gain a top three finish in the Portuguese Liga and will play in the UEFA Cup this year. Reyes, combined with one of the other new signings — Pablo Aimar, should inject some creativity into the Benfica midfield and provide stronger service to striker Óscar Cardozo.

One player who has left Benfica is Cristian Rodríguez, who had been on loan from Paris Saint-Germain but has now made a 7m Euro permanent move to link up with rivals FC Porto.

Celtic FC have signed midfielder Marc Crosas from FC Barcelona in a deal which could rise to 1.4m Euros. The 20-year-old defensive midfielder joins the Scottish champions through a complex deal. Celtic will pay an initial £415,000 fee that could rise to as much as £1.6m depending on appearances. that allows Barcelona to buy back the player for £1.6m at the end of the 2009/10 season. Barcelona will also receive 25% of any transfer fee if Crosas is sold to another club. The 20-year-old was introduced to the fans at Celtic Park this past Sunday prior to Celtic’s season opening 1-0 win over St Mirren. Celtic fought off competition from Sevilla, Sporting Gijon and Sampdoria for Crosas’ signature.

Crosas made his first-team debut for Barcelona two seasons ago but has only made one appearance since. He went on loan to French champions Lyon in January and played eight times for the club before the end of the season. Crosas was not the first player Celtic targeted under this complex system.  Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell revealed to the Sunday Herald that Argentina forward Javier Saviola and Portugal winger Ricardo Quaresma earlier refused the opportunity to join the club.

Meanwhile, Julio Baptista’s switch to Roma could fall through due to the price tag Real Madrid have put on his head, according to the player’s agent. Roma were keen on a loan deal similar to that which took Baptista to Arsenal in 2006, whereby they would pay three million euros now with the option to shell out another 10 million to secure his services permanently next year.

After a long frustrating summer, Everton look to close some deals in the coming days. Everton have bid £6 million for Rennes midfielder Stéphane M’Bia who is being targeted as a replacement for defensive midfielder Lee Carsley. M’Bia is currently on duty with Cameroon at the Olympics Newcastle striker Alan Smith was being targeted in a £2 million transfer. Moyes has failed to bring in any new players since guiding Everton to fifth place last season and his squad was further depleted by the sale of Andrew Johnson to Fulham. Everton have had some turmoil in the boardroom after chief executive Keith Wyness resigned his position at the club. Chairman Bill Kenwright, who has come under fire from Everton fans who were angry at the lack of progress in the transfer market, has reiterated he would welcome new investment to strengthen the club’s financial firepower.

Two potential targets have dried up as Sporting Lisbon president Filipe Soares Franco insists midfielder Joao Moutinho will not be leaving the club this summer and CSKA have rubbished reports of a move for Vagner Love. Roman Babaev, the director general of the club, has reportedly stated “It isn’t true that we have loaned Vagner Love to Everton, there are no negotiations about that.”

UEFA Cup hopefuls Aston Villa have made another splash into the transfer market after agreeing a £7.8m fee with Rangers for their highly-rated Spanish defender Carlos Cuellar. Villa invoked an exit clause in the player’s contract after the 26-year-old had made it known that he wanted to play in the English Premier League.

Cuellar moved to Ibrox from Spanish side Osasuna last summer and enjoyed a terrific debut season for the club, helping them to the UEFA Cup final and winning both the Clydesdale Bank SPL and Scottish Football Writers’ Association player of the year awards.

Cuellar will be Villa’s seventh signing of the summer following the transfers of Curtis Davies (loan deal made permanent), Steve Sidwell, Brad Friedel, Brad Guzan, as well as defenders Nicky Shorey and Luke Young. Shorey and Young joined in recent days on seperate transfers from Reading and Middlesbrough respectively. Both have been on the fringes of the England squad and will add much needed depth to the Villa squad.

Sticking with the theme of defenders on the move, Monaco have reached an agreement with AC Milan to sign defender Dario Simic. Simic, 32, had spent the past six years at the Rossoneri after moving over from rivals Internazionale. Milan won two Champions League trophies during his stay at the club.

Lastly, Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp has made French defender Younes Kaboul his newest recruit after agreeing a £6million deal with Tottenham. The ex-Auxerre man was recruited by former Tottenham boss Martin Jol but he saw his playing time diminish under Jol’s successor Juande Ramos, who preferred to play midfielder Didier Zokora at centre-back rather than Kaboul.

The 22-year-old centre-back should be available for next Sunday’s Premier League opener against Chelsea but will have to work hard to break into the Pompey defence as the regular centre-back pairing Sylvain Distin and Sol Campbell is quite solid. It is unlikely though that Campbell will be able to play all of the fixtures in the domestic league and UEFA Cup so Kaboul will be a valuable depth signing.

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.

The stories of legendary proportions continued to be written on Tuesday night as Group D was decided. In a stunning reversal of fortunes, former Group D leaders Shakhtar Donetsk were knocked out of all European competitions last night. Oscar Cardozo was the hero for Portugese giants Benfica as he scored two goals in the first half. Cardozo punished an early Shakhtar mistake, a poor back pass from Lewandowski, stepping past goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov and slotting the ball home in the sixth minute.

Shakhtar had a shout for a penalty soon after as Brandao was brought down inside the Benfica area but referee Kyros Vassaras waved play on. Benfica were able to continue building their momentum and in the 22nd minute, Cardozo struck again. He timed his leap to perfection as he headed in Maxi Pereira’s right-wing cross to leave the Ukrainian club shell-shocked. To their credit, Shakhtar picked up the challenge and tried to fight their way back into the match. They were given a lifeline in the 32nd minute when David Luiz was judged to have impeded Cristiano Lucarelli inside the Benfica area. Though Quim nearly saved it, Lucarelli converted from the spot to make it 2-1 and add a bit of potential controversy to the match. To my eye, it was embellished but TV replays are often misleading and the referee has to make a snap decision based on a one-time witnessing of the act.

The second half saw Shakhtar pile men forward and launch a desperate attack, but Benfica remained organized and compact and were able to concentrate everything they had into defending the lead. It was an exciting ending with plenty of close calls but ultimately Benfica prevailed and will now progress to the UEFA Cup where I would rank them as one of the favourites to progress deep into the competition. If you want to see about three minutes of highlights from this match there is currently a clip over on YouTube.

Benfica’s win meant that the outcome of the other match in the group did not matter though at the time none of the participants knew that. AC Milan were looking to finish the group stage strongly and assure themselves of a more favorable draw for the next round. However, the match itself was not a very exciting affair as both clubs lacked initiative for the first 45 mintues.

The one highlight from this match was the winning goal by Filippo Inzaghi. Not only did it give his side all three points but it also pushed him past German great Gerd Muller as the top scorer in UEFA competitions. Inzhagi now has 63 goals in 98 appearances in UEFA club competition and at 34 continues to surprise with his performances. It is unlikely that he will catch Raul for the all-time mark in Champions League play as he is twelve goals behind. It is even unsure how long he will last as the all-time scorer in UEFA club competitions as Ruud van Nistelrooy is charging hard towards both marks. van Nistelrooy has 57 goals is Champions League play and is having another fantastic campaign with 4 goals in 5 matches. van Nistelrooy also holds the single season record for the Champions League when he scored 12 goals for Manchester United in the 2002/03 campaign.

However, let’s celebrate what Inzaghi has accomplished and let us remember that it was his goals last season that fired AC Milan to victory in the finals of the competition. Congrats to you Super Pippo!

As AC Milan will be heading to Tokyo to compete in the FIFA Club World Cup against Boca Juniors and other regional champions, the final group games in Group D have been bumped up to today.

Coming off last week’s results, AC Milan have already qualified for the next round but will want to finish on top of the group. They take on Celtic at home and the Scottish club need a draw to be absolutely certain of qualifying for the next round. Celtic have yet to win in seven visits to Italy and are missing a couple of key personnel in Lee Naylor (calf) and Shunsuke Nakamura (knee). Goalkeeper Artur Boruc may be lost after this match for as long as a month as he will have his troublesome knee examined. He may require surgery but the team are hopeful that it is not serious. More worrying for Celtic is that Carlo Ancelotti has said he is going to field the best team available to him though Marek Jankulovski (knee), Ronaldo (calf) and Emerson (fibula) are out through injury.

The key area will be in midfield where AC Milan’s quality far outstrips that of Celtic. AC Milan’s attacking midfielder Kaká has been voted the European Footballer of the Year and is almost certain to win World Footballer of the Year as well. He’s picked up where he left off from last season with two goals and two assists in five Champions League matches. Kaká was the difference when Milan knocked Celtic out in the round of 16 last season. Add to the mix Clarence Seedorf and Andrea Pirlo and it’s easy to see that Celtic are going to have their hands full. However, Celtic did manage a 2-1 win back on Matchday 2 which became more famous for the pitch invasion incident involving Milan’s goalkeeper Dida. Celtic are likely to play a packed midfield in hopes of taking away space and time from Kaká.

The other game in the group sees Shakhtar Donetsk playing host to Benfica, who have already been eliminated from further Champions League action but could still qualify for the UEFA Cup with a win. A draw would see Shakhtar qualify for UEFA Cup, while a win coupled with a Celtic loss would put them through to the round of 16. Shakhtar had looked likely to qualify after consecutuve wins on the first two Matchdays (a 2-0 win over Celtic and a 1-0 win in Portugal over Benfica) However, they have since lost three straight games, twice to Milan and then last week at Celtic when they were beaten by Massimo Donati’s stoppage-time strike.

For Benfica, midfielders Fábio Coentrão and Cristián Rodríguez are both unavailable with leg injuries while Nélson is struggling to make it back to full fitness with a thigh problem. They were defeated by FC Porto in domestic action this weekend but it was a very tight match and a singular moment of brilliance by Ricardo Quaresma made the difference for Porto. Shakhtar did not play this past weekend as their scheduled domestic match with FC Zorya Luhansk was cancelled in order to boost their preparation for this match. The extra rest allowed players such as Dmytro Chygrynskiy, Zvonimir Vukic and Brandao to recover from niggling injuries and manager Mircea Lucescu will have a full-strength squad to choose from.

I think the extra rest will factor into this match, as will the home advantage and I would not be shocked to see a 2-1 or 2-0 scoreline in Shakhtar’s favour.

Benfica midfielder Augustin Binya has been banned for six UEFA matches following his red card for a high challenge on Scott Brown in a recent Champions League match against Celtic. This is the correct decision on what can truly be described using that oft-thrown around term — horror tackle. As we showed in an earlier post, Binya was clearly looking to inflict some hurt on Brown and was successful in doing so. Six games seems a sufficient punishment for this sort of violent act.

Benfica can appeal against the decision. However, if they are unsuccessful Binya will miss Benfica’s remaining Champions League Group D matches against AC Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk. Benfica will then have to cope without Binya for their next four matches in Europe, which could be in the latter stages of this season’s Champions League or UEFA Cup. The ban will also carry over to future seasons if, as seems likely, Benfica finish bottom of Group D and bow out of Europe for this campaign.

I sincerely hope that Benfica’s Augustin Binya is hit with a harsh ban for his horror tackle on Celtic’s Scott Brown. Actually, to term it a tackle is an injustice. It really was nothing more than an assault and attempt to injure Brown. The closest I’ve seen to this is when Manchester United’s Roy Keane tried to do in Alf Inge Haaland. There was a bit of history to that one as Keane felt Haaland had taunted him when he was injured in a match in 1997 when Haaland was with Leeds. Keane waited until 2001 to seek his revenge. The Binya tackle seemed to appear out of frustration rather than revenge as in Keane’s case. I’ve posted links to both videos so that you can compare for yourself.

For the record, both incidents are distasteful and have no place in the game. Keane ended up being banned for eight matches after admitting that he intended to hurt Haaland. Martin Hansson, the Swedish referee, showed Binya a straight red card, and was quoted as saying:

“I couldn’t say it was the worst tackle I’ve ever seen because I’ve refereed a lot of matches and seen a lot of bad challenges,” Hansson said. “But it is certainly one of the worst tackles and there is no doubt in my mind it fully merited a straight red card.”

Uefa have confirmed they will investigate the tackle which saw Binya catch Brown just beneath his right knee.

Binya:

Keane:

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.