Champions League preview: Groups A-D

The group stages of the Champions League were set Thursday in Monaco, producing two clear “groups of death” and setting up some historically resonant clashes for the coming season of top-flight European football.

Matches kick off September 14-15 and are broadcast live across the Fox family of networks. The final will take place at London’s Wembley Stadium May 28, 2011, and will be broadcast on Fox.

You can follow every game this season on Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Soccer +, your regional Fox Sports Network, our new broadband service FoxSoccer.tv and get real-time game updates via Twitter @fsctv.

This is the first of a two-part look at the groups you’ll be seeing this season, with an eye towards the American fan.

GROUP A

Inter Milan: The reigning champs lost their manager over the off-season, with the so-called “Special One,” Jose Mourinho, jumping to Real Madrid. So what? This team’s still pretty darn good. Dutch maestro Wesley Sneijder pulls the strings, the Brazilian quartet of Thiago Motta, Lucio, Maicon and 'keeper Julio Cesar form one of the best defenses in Europe, and Argentine forward Diego Milito was justly named Europe’s player of the year. Repeating is very difficult, but this proud club has won Serie A for five straight seasons, and has the spine to make a deep run here. Not a club you want to play against, but certainly one that is fun to watch.

Werder Bremen: Bremen needed late heroics just to get here, offing Itay’s Sampdoria in extra time in a playoff series that showed they have real problems to overcome. They are not the best team in Germany by any stretch, and they are going to have to be careful not to fall off the pace early on. Keep an eye on midfield playmaker Marko Marin, new midfield sensation Felix Kroos and the defensive tandem of Per Mertesacker and Clemens Fritz, both of whom are seeing far too much action. Could be the team that slips into the Europa League.

Tottenham Hotspur: One of England’s best-loved clubs, Spurs are famous worldwide for playing a flowing, attacking style of football that at times resembles their bitter rivals in North London, Arsenal. Juergen Klinsmann was one of Tottenham's greats, and this current bunch includes stars Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Gareth Bale and Mexican star Gio Dos Santos. Spurs have some weaknesses — they were stunned in the first leg of their playoff by tiny Swiss side Young Boys Bern — but they recovered well and have the pace, power and cash to make something of this chance. This is their first appearance in the modern Champions League, and their first top-tier European outing in nearly 50 years.

FC Twente: There’s a phrase in football called “making up the numbers.” Here in the States, we call this “cannon fodder.” Twente are not a bad team, by any stretch — heck, they are the champions of Holland, after all. But the Dutch Eredivise isn’t what it once was, and even Twente’s gutsy, muscular style of soccer is going to have a hard time gaining traction in what is one of the toughest groups. Unfortunately, they lost the manager who guided them to that title, Englishman Steve McLaren, and are not full of what anyone would call “name players.” Could be a short European season for this bunch.

CLASS ACTS

Check out our gallery of the recently drawn eight groups in the Champions League to see which clubs have the best chance to reach the knockout stage.

GROUP B

Olympique Lyon: The 2010 semifinalists stunned most observers last season; no one thought this proud but hardly world-class squad would even get that far. Guess what? They had perhaps the toughest run through the knockout stages, first ousting Real Madrid, then taking out bitter rivals Bordeaux before finally falling to Bayern Munich. Lyon does have some exciting players: Hugo Lloris is a perennial Premier League target and was on the shortlist for UEFA goalkeeper of the year; Lisandro Lopez and Michel Bastos are genuine world-class talents. They’ve also been very solid this decade, dominating Ligue One with a stunning seven titles in 10 seasons. Keep an eye on them.

Benfica: Portuguese football is like a wilted flower; once it was among the best in the world but today even the giants in the sport are showing stress and age. Benfica makes its return to the Champions League after two seasons out in the wilderness and are still recovering from a calamitous nine-year spell that almost saw the club sink under debt. Nuno Gomes and Maxi Pereira will be familiar to American fans from their World Cup appearances, but the best player they have is Fabio Coentrao, who stunned the world this summer with his ranging ability at left back. Keep an eye on this kid.

Schalke: The Germans are making their return to the Champions League for the first time in three seasons, and should be familiar to Yanks as the home of American defender Jermaine Jones. Jones, a probable national team starter if he could ever stay healthy, has been vital for this Gelsenkirschen club, which despite being one of Germany’s best-loved teams, saw it’s glory days some 60 years ago. But a revival — sparked by an infusion of cash from Russian petrochemical giants Gazprom — has seen the team challenge for the top in the past five seasons. They are considered a tough, stern test in this group.

Hapoel Tel Aviv: Just happy to be here. Hapoel have never been anywhere close to this level and struggled against Red Bull Salzburg to get into the group stages. They do have one great player, however: Nigerian 'keeper Vincent Enyeama, who was the hero of an otherwise awful Super Eagles side this summer in South Africa. Acrobatic, daring — but flighty — Enyeama is likely to face a lot of shots.

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Tue, Apr. 26

Schalke 0-2 Man Utd | Recap

Wed, Apr. 27

Real Madrid 0-2 Barcelona | Recap

Tue, May 3

Barcelona 1-1 Real Madrid | Recap

Wed, May 4

Man Utd 4-1 Schalke | Recap

Sat, May 28

Barcelona 3-1 Manchester United | Recap

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CL Scores | Tables | Fixtures

GROUP C

Manchester United: Sir Alex Ferguson expects to be in Champions League final each season, but this draw did him no favors. Even with one of the deepest sides in the world, Ferguson will not find it easy to manage the minutes. Superstar Wayne Rooney has been brilliant in Europe, but the wear and tear on him is starting to show; his flop at the World Cup and his subsequent performances in the Premiership have some wondering if he is covering up an injury. Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs are important but aging; and there is no telling how well Rio Ferdinand can rebound from injury. Mexican Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez is a great pickup, but he’s learning fast that Prem games Saturday followed by a high-pressure Euro midweek game burns guys out. Yes, the Red Devils should negotiate the group, but perhaps not as easily as one might think.

Valencia: This is not the squad that qualified directly from La Liga last season. The biggest missing name is David Villa, the Spanish World Cup striker who has joined Barcelona. There is no obvious replacement in the side to take up Villa's role on a club that has a proud history but must frankly be considered an over-achiever at this stage. You can expect them to build a defensive wall and play especially tight on the road. Historically, Valencia is the third best team in Spain, behind only Barcelona and Real Madrid, and their stadium has often served as a "neutral" site for national teams, lying as it does between the two great rival cities. But without Villa, the scorer of more than 120 goals in the past five seasons, this does not look like a side capable of doing more than playing a spoiler role, even though this group gives them a reasonable chance to advance.

Glasgow Rangers: There is tremendous pressure on the Ibrox side, not only because of last season's awful performance in the group stage, but also because Scotland's automatic spot in the Champions League is riding on the Glasgow team's ability to go deep into the competition this season. Failure at the group stage will mean playoff football for the Scottish champ next summer and that would greatly reduce the chance of the group stage financial windfall. Rangers' problem is simple: even well-loved boss Walter Smith admits that Scottish football is in decline and that Rangers are struggling to attract top talent. When James Beattie is considered a major off-season acquistion, Kenny Miller is regarded as the attacking threat and American Maurice Edu is a key central midfield performer, you know that this is not a world-class roster. You will hear a lot about the famed “Ibrox roar” but the still-amazing atmosphere at their famed ground no longer unsettles opponents.

Bursaspor: The biggest challenge facing this little-known Turkish side will be handling the pressure of the Champions League. Their biggest asset could simply be the fact that they are unknowns and may catch opponents by surprise. This is not a side filled with household names, but they have risen in a tough home league using home-based talent. Whether the likes of Volkan Sen, Muhammet Demir and Sercan Yildirim can impose themselves on the likes of Manchester United or Valencia will determine if this is but a cameo appearance. On paper you would expect that the Turks and Scots will be fighting for third in the section and a Europa League place. Weird factoid: Bursa Ataturk Stadium is a small, an 18,000-capacity ground. It is being expanded for the 2011-12 season, doubling its capacity in either a sign of tremendous confidence that Bursaspor is here to stay — or a case of getting the extra seats a year too late.

GROUP D

Barcelona: Home to some of the great players on the planet, if you liked watching Spain this summer, then you’re gonna love these guys, because they made up the core of that championship side. The names are all boldface: Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique, David Villa, Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Xavi — and it goes on. Three-time winners of the European Cup and locked in a yearly death-struggle with archrivals Real Madrid for the Spanish title, Barcelona are among the top clubs on the planet in terms of power, passion and pure brilliance. Flowing and attractive, this team beats you with passing and pinpoint accuracy, and has so much talent it’s almost criminal. This is the very definition of “world class soccer;” Barcelona are immediate favorites to win the trophy.

Panathinaikos: Greek soccer isn’t what it used to be. That doesn’t mean that folks actually want to play down there — this is the proverbial “tough crowd.” The Shamrock has a long and proud history in Greece and negligible one outside of it, their best finish coming way back in 1971 when they were European Cup runners-up. These days, they are scraping for cash and trying to get by on second-tier players. Gilberto Silva, formerly of Arsenal, is here; as are Frenchmen Sidney Govou, Jean-Alain Boumsong and the erratic Djbril Cisse, once of Liverpool and various hair salons. These guys are not pushovers, and have to think this draw gives them a chance to reach the knockout stages.

FC Copenhagen: Let’s get this right out of the way: the Danes are poor. They have difficulty scoring (witness their display against Rosenborg in the playoffs) and don’t have much of a record in Europe. I could name their players, but you’ve only heard of one of them: Former Chelsea and Ajax man Jesper Gronkjaer, who at 33, still has it up top. These guys are going to struggle, and are probably delighted just to be here.

Rubin Kazan: The drama around this bunch is probably better known than any of their players; in 2009 they were involved in a very weird transfer scandal involving a Bulgarian team that turned out to have been the work of scam artists. The Russian champs shocked Barcelona last season in the group stages, beating them away to inflict the only scar on the Spanish giants’ otherwise immaculate record. Bet that Barcelona is looking forward to their rematch. Nigerian Obafemi Martins is their key man up top; you’ll recall he did nothing this summer.

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Jamie Trecker is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com covering the UEFA Champions League.