Champions League Groups Set

With Guimarães losing to FC Basel 1893 last night, Porto and Sporting stand alone as the sole Portuguese representatives in this season’s iteration of the UEFA Champions League.

At the draw, UEFA officials made sure to remind us that a cloud exists over Porto’s participation this year due to their implication in the Golden Whistle bribery scandal. If nothing’s been done with the arduous appeals process that has taken place thus far, I’m sure nothing’s going to happen to their status between now and Matchday 1.

The draw was completed earlier today and the groups for the two are as follows:

Group C
Barcelona
Sporting
FC Basel 1893
Shakhtar Donetsk

Group G
Arsenal
Porto
Fenerbahçe
Dynamo Kyiv

For me, Sporting have the easier draw of the two. Some were calling Group G the toughest of the lot, as teams such as Turkish side Fenerbahçe and Ukranian club Dynamo Kyiv tend to pose difficult away test and are tricky encounters no matter where the match is played. In spite of Porto’s domination of the league last year, I actually think Sporting have a better shot of making it through simply by looking at the relative strength of the two groups. On the other hand, Sporting just got their asses handed to them by Real Madrid 3 - 5 in a preseason friendly yesterday and Porto started off the domestic season looking rather dominant, so what the hell do I know?

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