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We all sat here exactly one month ago waiting patiently. We were good, nice people who did as they were told. We waited all summer for the Serie A fixture list to be released because you can only deal with stupid transfer rumors for so long before your head explodes. One by one the games were flashed up on the screen, some games obviously more important than others in the grand scheme of things.
It's not the 28th of July like on Serie A schedule day.Instead, it's August 28th, two days before Juventus' Serie A opener against Chievo n Verona. And rather than learning their scheduling fait domestically, we'll find out who Juve will be playing in the group stage of the Champions League,
So after all the explanations of how things actually work with the draw and the procession of Champions League-related things that take up way too much time, we will know who Juventus is going to be facing — and probably frustrating the living hell out of us — over the course of the next three months. Get that popcorn ready, ladies and gents.
The complete 32-team field is as follows:
Pot 1
Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Arsenal, Porto
Pot 2
Schalke 04, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, PSG, Shakhtar Donetsk, Basel, Zenit, Manchester City
Pot 3
Bayer Leverkusen, Olympiacos, CSKA Moscow, Ajax, Liverpool, Sporting Lisbon, Galatasaray, Athletic Bilbao
Pot 4
Anderlecht, Roma, Ludogorets, APOEL, BATE Borisov, Maribor, Monaco, Malmo
/channels inner pessimist/
Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayer Leverkusen or Liverpool, Monaco.
Book it, folks.
/no longer channels inner pessimist/
Obviously we don't know how the draw is going to go other than the usual conspiracy theories out there. Although, based on the last couple of years, it will be weird not having a Danish team in the tournament for Juventus to record a disappointing scoreless draw against.
And who knows, we might even get a recreation of this again. That would be pretty, pretty funny.
It would be cool to see Fernando Llorente face his former team based on everything that went down his final year at Bilbao. But then again, Fernando is too classy to cause a stink — especially based on the fact he publicly congratulated them for making it through the qualifying round. What a guy.
No matter who Juventus draw, they're going to make a lot and a lot of money in the Champions League this season.
€50.6m for Juventus from the CL groupstage & that is excluding any performance related bonuses (1m for win, 500k for draw) + gate receipts.
— Tarek Khatib (@ADP1113) August 28, 2014
2 teams last season made more than Juve are, at worst case, set to make this year from only the group-stage: winners Real (57m) & PSG (54m).
— Tarek Khatib (@ADP1113) August 28, 2014
Ah, so much cash to spend on loans with future options to buy. So many future Padoins to sign. I can't contain myself.
Now that I've returned from an alternate universe, I'll just end it right there. Enjoy the draw (hopefully), folks. We'll be checking in once everything is done with.
