The draw for the Champions League group stage is always a slightly weird event. On the one hand, it’s a draw for a major football tournament, and beyond the pomposity, there is never not a sense of anticipation–and perhaps especially this season after the delayed and curtailed conclusion to last season’s competition.
Here, laid out before us, in the glass bowls and the plastic spheres, as UEFA bureaucrats mingle with well-turned out former stars, are the working of the fates, every unscrewing and carefully intoned name pregnant with delicious possibility. And on the other hand, there’s the knowledge that, even after the rejigging of the seeding to favor champions over just the biggest teams, this is all just the prelude to 96 games that will almost certainly just lead to the richest two sides in each group going through to the last 16 when the real business begins.