Bilbao would have qualified any way due to coming 5th they now get to go straight into the group stages but the team that was 6th do not get a spot ala West Ham getting 7th in England. Effectively losing a Europa league spot.
I’ve never been to Italy. They’ve been a bit “stabby” with English fans before, haven’t they?
It would be delicious to get Feyenoord.
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Mainly Rome, Pap. Bit less hotheaded* further North if we do pull out an Italian club.
*feel free to replace with another regional stereotype (personally I’d go for yellowbellied)
Naples isn’t exactly a friendly place - downright dodgy in fact.
My plans for a European Tour during the Group Stage have been scuppered having checked the dates against my Roster and I don’t have any spare leave between now and the end of the year 
This would be a fantastic European night!
Also Ajax when they fall out of the champions league. This would be a dream game for me. Ajax v Saints!
The Echo have got an interesting piece for the MLGs of this world.
Qualifying for the Europa League group stages alone will see Saints pocket more than £1.85m - the amount each of the 48 clubs are automatically distributed when entering that point of the competition.
If Saints win their group they will bag almost £390,000 and a maximum of around £1.7m in win bonuses, according the numbers provided by UEFA for last season’s competition.
Reaching the knockout stages will see Saints bring in a maximum of £4m when all bonuses are added together.
A glorious run to the final to lift the cup can see Saints bag a maximum of £11.6m - and that’s even before the £118m television money is dished out.
In all, UEFA hand out more than £177m worth of performance related payments and then a further £118m, which is distributed according to proportional value of the domestic TV market from where the club is from.
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According to today’s Echo these are the teams already in the group stages :-
Feyenoord, Inter Milan, Fiorentina, Schalke 04, Zenit St Petersburg, Athletic Bilbao, Celta Vigo, Standard Liege, Nice, Braga, Mainz 05, Zorya Luhansk, Konyaspor & Manchester United.
Fucking any of those… Apart from Man U.
We do not want to draw Zorya Luhansk.
In Ukraine, and right near the Russian border, near to where fighting has been going on.
Lovely.
We know 15 teams out of 48 for the group stage
To come - Swiss cup winners, 10 losers from the Champions League play-off round and 22 who get through the EL qualifying rounds
If that’s not enough another 8 teams come in from the CL after the EL group stages - the probable winners aren’t even in the competition yet!
It’s not worth speculating who we’ll get until July (although its fun). At least we know six guaranteed games
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Here are the key dates. Well from where we are interested.
26/08/16: Group stage draw, Monaco
15/09/16: Group stage, matchday one
29/09/16: Group stage, matchday two
20/10/16: Group stage, matchday three
03/11/16: Group stage, matchday four
24/11/16: Group stage, matchday five
08/12/16: Group stage, matchday six
12/12/16: Round of 32 draw, Nyon
16/02/17: Round of 32, first leg
23/02/17: Round of 32, second leg
24/02/17: Round of 16 draw, Nyon
09/03/17: Round of 16, first leg
16/03/17: Round of 16, second leg
17/03/17: Quarter-final draw, Nyon
13/04/17: Quarter-finals, first leg
20/04/17: Quarter-finals, second leg
21/04/17: Semi-final draw, Nyon
04/05/17: Semi-finals, first leg
11/05/17: Semi-finals, second leg
24/05/17: Final (Friends Arena, Solna)
The final in Sweden holds 65,000, so we should get tickets ok!
Also if we get Zenit Saint Petersburg, I think I will give the away game a miss!
I’ll be giving any Russian side a swerve.
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Got my eye on some of the teams that could fall out of the champions league tonight.
Now mixed feelings on this one, but would love to see Ajax v Southampton! They are currently 2-2 on agg and Ajax are away tonight, but I want them to do well, but they will not in the champions league anyway!
Anderlecht are also losing 2-4 on agg!
Sparta Prague are out and in the Europa League.
Olympiakos - out of the champions league, in the Europa league!
Ajax smash in a 2nd and with 3 minutes left are through to the champions league 1-2 (2-3 on agg)
Celtic could fall through the trapdoor into the Europa League yet! 1-1 (2-2 agg). Nice easy away game for me.