I received a question about the seedings for the group stage. The best internet site I have come across that details in the inner working of the UEFA seeding system and the co-efficients is authored by Bert Kassies. It is an impressive piece of work.
With the final thirty-two now decided you would have to rate Levski Sofia's (first Bulgarian side to make the group stage) defeat of Chievo as a major surprise as well as Ajax blowing a late lead and going out to FC Copenhagen.
FC Copenhagen contains some names that should be recognizable to many. Tobias Linderoth (ex-Everton), Marcus Allback (ex-Aston Villa) and Jesper Gronkjaer (ex-Chelsea) have all spent time in the Premiership. Goalkeeper Jesper Christiansen was with Rangers in Scotland while Razak Pimpong played for Ghana in the World Cup. Canadian Atiba Hutchinson, who will surely play in one of the big three leagues in Europe within the next couple of years, just signed for Copenhagen this year after spending two seasons with Helsingborgs of the Swedish league.
Here is the country-by-country by pot breakdown of the 32 teams that will be drawn on Thursday and last season's make up.
Country pot 1 pot 2 pot 3 pot 4 Total Last Season
Spain 3 0 0 0 3 4
Italy 2 1 0 0 3 4
England 3 1 0 0 4 4
France 0 2 1 0 3 2
Portugal 0 1 2 0 3 2
Holland 0 1 0 0 1 2
Germany 0 1 1 1 3 3
Scotland 0 1 0 0 1 1
Romania 0 0 1 0 1 0
Greece 0 0 2 0 2 2
Russia 0 0 1 1 2 0
Belgium 0 0 0 1 1 2
Ukraine 0 0 0 2 2 0
Bulgaria 0 0 0 1 1 0
Turkey 0 0 0 1 1 1
Denmark 0 0 0 1 1 0
Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Norway, and Slovakia all had teams in the group stage last season but for 2006/07.
I am the soccer analyst for the Fox Soccer Report and appear twice a week - every Monday and Friday at 10:00 EST. I have also been a regular contributor to the Fox Soccer Channel website since the summer of 2004. Over the last twenty years I have contributed to various radio and television programs throughout North America as well writing about the game for newspapers, magazines and websites.
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