squirtyflower said:we were the third team drawn out for goodness sake, surely that afforded us some choice, but no, Group E for the upstartsJoeMercer'sWay said:squirtyflower said:i can't see the big deal but also can't see why Cluj couldn't go in our group and got put in theirs and couldn't see why we only had the choice of one group from five yesterday
because other teams from other leagues are also paired up and have to go in certain groups as well, thus narrowing our options.
also why is it the TV pairings are not aired at the beginning and possible ramifications for the draw?
and why does ours keep changing?
I did (sort of) understand the explanations posted earlier about why we could only go in group E, (teams from the same country and TV pairings), but does that mean we were "always" going in that group with Bayern? The above post, reminded me that we were 3rd out of pot 2, and could only go in group E, if so at what stage did only group E become available to us? For example had we not been drawn out when we were (3rd) but at a later stage (anything from 4 - 8), was it already pre-determined that we were going in E, before we were even drawn out?
If it were not pre-determined, had we not come out 3rd, presumably someone else could have been allocated group E? , had that happened, what group could we have gone into?. With this cock-eyed system (bent), if group E was the ONLY group available to us (you can assume, that it was going to be required for us at some time), and therefore was unavailable to any other side, and therefore to answer my own question, City to group E, was decided at a very early stage (before we were drawn out) that to me sounds like FIXED