Pot three seems to get the harshest draws in relation to the club's standings. The most interesting group I recon is Stuttgart's.
Tough groups for Brest, Shakhtar, Salzburg, Red Star Belgrade, Feyenoord, Lille, and Dinamo Zagreb.
Tough draw for Girona too, actually. A baptism of fire for them in the UCL. I hope they trounce their opponents from the EPL, and put in a good showing of themselves in general. I think I saw Pere in the crowd.
As for our draw, I'm happy enough with it. I don't think there's anything I'd have dreaded to get, but it's a nice mix and it will be fun to face Inter again, relive some memories and hopefully pick up where we left off with them. Only time we've faced 'em previously was the final, so a pretty good record I'd say. Nice little trip to Bratislava too.
I had been dreading the change to the new format, but I'll admit it has thrown up a great list of fixtures across the board. I think the quality of competition going in was quite high this year anyway, but I've warmed to this format a bit having seen the inaugural draw.
I'll never be fully comfortable with it being computerised, just one more way to introduce foul-play without anyone seeing. I don't buy all the talk about "they can't use balls for the whole thing because it takes four hours", if that's how long it takes to do it, then just make the draw four hours.