Fulham have been drawn in Group E of the Europa League alongside Roma, Basel and CSKA Sofia.
The Italians, who finished sixth in Serie A last season, reached the group stages with a comprehensive 10-4 win over Kosice, which included a 7-1 success in the second leg at home. The draw also throws up the intriguing possibility of the Riise brothers lining up on opposite sides.
FC Basel finished third in the Swiss Super League last season – having won the title the year before – and qualified for the group phase with a thumping 8-2 win over Azerbaijan’s FK Baku. At least, Roy Hodgson should be familiar with the styles of play of our opponents having managed in both the Italian and Swiss leagues.
CSKA Sofia are the final members of Group E and the Bulgarian outfit shouldn’t be underestimated. They finished second in their league last season and confidently disposed of Dinamo Moscow in the play-off round of the competition.
My immediate reaction is that we’ve got a decent chance of qualifying from this group. It’s all very exciting!
OMG! Yesterday I joked with my friend from Houston on facebook about playing Roma. He’s a Roma supporter. Too funny.
Roma will be very tough. We might be able to squeak something at home but going away and getting a result will be difficult. I guess it will be the ultimate test of Roy’s Italian grounding.
I can’t wait. I agree with most that it will be a 3 way race for 2nd in the group. I would love to advance but to be honest, just getting this far has made me so proud of the club. Anything from here is icing on the cake. I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the hell out of it.
In the US, the UEFA Cup matches would be featured on Fox Soccer Channel & Setanta. This year, neither broadcaster will carry it. There is a rumor Gol TV may pick up the U.S. rights, which would be great. Otherwise, I may have to find online options for the rest of the competition. There’s also a rumor DirecTV (my satellite provider) may pick up the rights exclusive to their customers.
should have said in “past years” the competition was on FSC & Setanta.
i just did some serious anoraking, and it seems we got a pretty tough draw numerically. see for yourself:
http://fulham.theoffside.com/team-news/perm-crunching-the-numbers.html
Interesting stuff, but I’d be pretty confident of picking up points at home. Basel have been very poor on their travels recently and got just one point in the Champions’ League last season. There’s no doubt it will be tough but, as you’ve acknowledged, there are flaws in the coefficients system, and I think we can make a decent fist of this.
Another Offside post also appears to agree with your findings TimmyG:
http://numbers.theoffside.com/features/the-favorites-and-underdogs-for-advancing-in-europe.html#more-18
But I’ve got a sneaky (and maybe overly optimistic) feeling that we’ll do it!