It's a luxury for the Italians in the Champions League draw in Montecarlo. The Milan, who despite starting in the first tier had the bugbears Manchester City and PSG, avoids them both and draws Luciano Spalletti's Zenit St. Petersburg, Anderlecht and Malaga. He breathes a sigh of relief too Juventus, who risked the iron group being drawn only in the third tier, but in the end gets along very well with the reigning champions of the Chelsea, Shakhtar Donetsk and even what on paper is the team-mattress of the tournament, the unknown Danes of Nordsjælland, who in their history boast only 14 appearances in the Europa League, with 7 defeats.
The group of iron instead happens to the Real Madrid of Josè Mourinho, who will not have been at all happy to see the urn come out before Manchester City, the most formidable team in the second tier, then theAjax (in that case it was worse), but above all, as a fourth opponent which in theory should be the most affordable, the double reigning champions of Germany of Borussia Dortmund.
Much easier instead the groups of Port and Arsenal, the two theoretically weaker first-tier teams but who benefited from a fairly generous ballot box: it is true that the Portuguese draw the psg by Ibrahimovic, but then find in Dynamo Kiev and Dynamo Zagreb two obstacles certainly not insurmountable; better yet the Gunners with it Schalke 04, Olimpiacos and Montpellier of the former Giroud. They shouldn't have any problems either Bayern Munich (group F with Valencia, Lille and Bate Borisov), Barcelona (group G with Benfica, Spartak Moscow and Celtic), and Manchester United (group H with Braga, Galatasaray and Cluj).
MILAN – The Rossoneri therefore find Zenit St. Petersburg, coached by Luciano Spalletti, who in recent years, in addition to dominating in Russia, has also built up a certain European curriculum, with a Europa League and a European Super Cup put on the bulletin board and 22 matches played in the Champions League, of which 9 won. Less insidious are the Belgian champions Anderlecht, who have been missing from the competition since 2006, when, among other things, they were eliminated without bringing home a single victory. Malaga, on the other hand, is an unknown factor: Built last year with great fanfare by Sheikhs Al-Thani, the Andalusian club was first seduced and then abandoned. There are still some important players, see De Michelis, Joaquin and Toulalan, but little more.
JUVENTUS – The Juventus club was literally kissed by luck: starting from the third tier, anything could happen, in the worst case scenario even the iron group with Real Madrid, City and Borussia, and instead apart from the reigning champions Chelsea, the rest is more than affordable. The trip to Ukraine against Lucescu's Shakhtar (who eliminated Roma two years ago by winning both at home and away) will be tricky, but much less so the double challenge with the competition's Cinderella: the Nordsjælland, Danish champions for the first time last year, was founded just in 1991.
The final will take place on 25 May at Wembley, where the 2010 match had already been played which saw Guardiole's Barcelona triumph over Manchester United 3-1.
