City have been drawn into a fairly strong group for the Europa League, with Group A providing one of the ties of the round when City meet Juventus.
Juventus, one of the biggest names in Europe, have undergone major changes since their disappointing campaign last year. Luigi Del Neri, the manager who took Sampdoria to Champions League qualification (only for them to lose the play-off to Werder Bremen this week), is the new man in charge and with him have come a host of home-grown players: Bonucci, Pepe, Aquilani, Motta, Storari and possibly Di Natale to follow, if Italian paper speculation is to be trusted. On top of this, Milos Krasic, the Serbian winger, has arrived to try and succeed where Diego (now departed to Wolfsburg after a torrid one season at Juve) failed.
After heavy changes, Juve will be expected, under the weight of their history, to succeed again this season - and the pressure, which saw regular protest fires spring up within the stands last year, will be on Del Neri.
Gianluigi Buffon has taken it upon himself to mock City in recent weeks and it would be a source of great pleasure to see him crumble at Eastlands when the tie comes around!
FC Salzburg, as they are known in European competition to avoid their heavily branded official name, FC Red Bull Salzburg, are more of an unknown to me. They have won the Austrian Bundesliga three out of the last four seasons. They lost 4-3 on aggregate in their Champions League qualification play-off this season against Hapoel Tel-Aviv, and got to the round of 32 in the Europa League last season, losing to Standard Liege in a run that saw them beat Lazio, Villareal and Levski Sofia (no mean scalps).
Lech Posnan are also the reigning champions of their domestic league in Poland and went through to the third round of last year's competition only to be knocked out by Udinese, after finishing above AS Nancy and, 2001-2002 winners, Feyenoord in the group stages. They also boast the best support in Poland, says my source... [I should say that two of the three teams in this group may have required a quick bit of research on a well-known online encyclopedia!]
So, largely on the count of Juventus, it will not be the easiest group to win, although I think that is within City's capabilities. But there are a few interesting ties to come on course to a competition Mancini wants City to go all the way in.
Hopefully we'll gel before they do, no shame in coming second to Juve though.
ReplyDeleteA trip to Salzburg will be nice - Munich is just a few miles over the border and there may be a little event called Octoberfest happening at the same time!
ReplyDelete