Last night, we got through a tough tie to get into this morning’s draw.
The “reward” for that was a series of games about as tough as we could have hoped for.
We’re off to Germany, Spain and Hungary.
Two top five countries again, a tricky third team.
There are two ways to look at this; you can be downhearted and say that it’s a tougher draw than we might have got and curse our rotten luck or you can recognise than in many ways it’s the best thing for us.
It’s a test, and this is a young team with a new philosophy.
It needs to be tested.
It needs to be put through its paces by quality sides, in order to grow.
These teams will certainly test us, all of them.
The Germans and the Spanish will bring technical flare and ability. The Hungarians – the club which started last season’s precipitous fall – will provide us with a physical challenge and an opportunity for revenge.
All in all, I’m happy with it.
The draw is sexy enough that it will sell tickets.
It’s precisely what you want from the second tier tournament.
We’ve shown we’re capable of beating technically good teams and so we won’t fear these fixtures at all.
It seems to me that European football has no easy fixtures anymore; certainly we don’t seem to get any easy draws.
None of the sides we’re going to face could be called easy, none of the games could be classed as straightforward.
Let’s have a look at the three sides we’re about to play and what to expect from them.
Bayern Leverkusen
Bayern Leverkusen were 6th in the Bundesliga last year, which would be considered a poor finish until you look at the sides who finished above them and their own respective strengths.
This is a team which is more than capable of holding its own against the very best.
They currently have four points from their first two league games, after a draw with Union Berlin on the opening day and then a rousing 4-0 win against Monchengladbach in their second game.
They are a damned powerful side, especially at home.
Their stadium holds a mere 30,000. That’s going to make away tickets difficult to come by.
Their team is a mix of new and established talents.
They sold one of their top players – the winger Leon Bailly – in the summer, to Aston Villa, for £32 million but they spent every single penny of it, including the £23 million acquisition of Odilon Kossounou, a 20-year-old centre back, from Bruges and the £15 million deal for Amine Adli, the young winger from Toulouse.
Their defence includes our former wing-back Jeremie Frimpong, of course, as well as German international Jonathan Tah and Dutchman Timothy Fou Mensah.
Their midfield includes Ezekiel Palacious, Austrian international Julian Baumgartlinger and the German international Nadiem Amiri.
They’ve got a powerhouse forward line, and this is where we’ll really learn a thing or two about our defenders.
Their main men are Argentine Lucas Alario and the Czech striker Patrik Schick, one of the stars of the recent World Cup.
If our young footballers are going to grow as players, it’ll be against opponents as good as these.
Real Betis
Like Leverkusen, Betis finished 6th in their domestic league last season, but again that’s a measure of the teams who finished above them as much as a reflection on them.
Four of Europe’s top clubs – Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla were above them, as were surprise package Real Sociedad.
Assume nothing. They are a good team.
Unlike Leverkusen, they’ve neither brought in a fortune (a £9 million deal for their right back, Emerson, to Barcelona being their only significant outgoing) nor spent much.
In fact, they’ve spent nothing. Spain has been hit particularly hard by the global health emergency and Betis, like others, are struggling badly as a result of it.
They’ve started the Spanish league campaign with two 1-1 draws, against Mallorca away and Cadiz at home respectively. Their next game is a home match against Real Madrid. All in all, they may not be getting off to the best possible beginning.
They have very good players in the midfield and the forward line; Spanish internationals Canales and Rodri are their creative players and they have French international Nabil Fekir up front alongside Borja Iglesias and Juanmi.
They will be tricky opponents.
Getting tickets for that one should be much easier; their home games are played in the Estadio Benito Villamarín, in Sevilla.
It holds 60,000.
Ferencvaros
Ferencvaros won the Hungarian title last season.
Their place in this competition is down to their defeat in the Champions League qualifiers against Young Boys of Switzerland, after they had knocked out Slavia Prague, who beat the mob across the city last year.
They should not be underestimated, and I suspect they won’t be considering that they beat us last season and started the incredible downward slide of this team.
They’ve played two games in the league this season, both at home, and they’ve won one and lost one. They didn’t do much significant transfer business, their league not exactly being cash-rich.
They have a strong and settled squad.
Their best players, and top scorers, remain Tokmac Nguen (who got the critical second against us at Parkhead) and Myrto Uzuni. Their significant addition this season was attacker Željko Gavri? from Red Star Belgrade.
They don’t pose as big a threat as the other two sides, and they don’t have the sexy names, but they are a big aggressive side who will give us problems if we let them.
But I thought we should have beat them last season and we should be very confident of doing it here.
Away tickets will be next to impossible to get.
They play their home games in the Ferencvaros Stadium, otherwise known as the Groupama Aréna.
It holds just 22,000 fans.
The Best Possible Challenge
This team will benefit from games against these clubs. We have so many young players in this side, players who need this kind of top class experience, and they aren’t going to get it playing in the SPFL and we know they aren’t.
These are the sorts of games where this side can really test itself, and in doing so get better and better.
They will be a great preparation for what we all hope is an assault on the Champions League Groups in the next campaign, and the benefit of winning the title and getting there automatically is that we’ll have a better summer of preparation beforehand.
Someone told me last night that the average age of our team was 23. I find it easy to believe.
When this team has the right level of experience it will go far … and this is a good competition in which to get it.
Six group games, then, interspersed with our domestic duties.
A lot of opportunities to learn.
We can only benefit from such a difficult challenge.
Well I guess there is certainly something in what you say James. We could have had a wee bit of an easier task, like the rankers group, but you know what it is a sexy group and it will be challenging, probably what we need if we want to develop still further.
Could we do worse than Scotland did in the EURO group against strong opposition, probably not and look at the praise they got even renewed a failing manager’s contract this week to some applause.
Will we get the same accolade as them from the press/media even if we do better in our group than they did of course not. Considering our starting point this season, well done again to Ange and the team to get us to this stage. Do we need the backing or support from the Scottish pressers. Absolutely not. Who wants to associate with that bunch of bigots. Our future is bright in green and white. We’re on our side now. HH