UEFA Cup Draw: Lech Poznan vs. Austria Vienna, Wisla Krakow vs. Tottenham Hotspur.

The 1st round UEFA Cup draw took place today with Polish teams allocated to play against Austria Vienna (Lech Poznan) and Tottenham Hotspur (Wisla Krakow). Well, at least we’ve got a chance of one team going through. Guess which one is it.

First I wanted to write a post about yesterday’s UEFA Cup qualifiers where Legia Warsaw lost to FC Moscow 0-2 and Lech Poznan drew with Grasshoppers 0-0. But, in all honesty, there isn’t much to write about. Legia only proved that they’re currenly too weak to perform on the European stage. Roger still can’t find his Euro form, moreover he received a red card yesterday (though I don’t know what was the cause of this decision). Legia are a team without style, they’re slow and boring. FC Moscow is also an average team, a one that Wisla or Lech would in all probability defeat. Therefore, I’m not exactly thrilled that Mariusz Jop plays regularly there, it would be a catastrophe if he didn’t. Moreover, Jop wasn’t what you’d call a solid defender yesterday. If there is a Pole in Legia worth watching it would be Sebastian Szalachowski who’s slowly regaining his fitness. I hope he comes back to good form this season. Lech did enough yesterday to safely secure a spot in the 1st round. Quite a good game from the Poznan team, with all nt players (Bosacki, Wojtkowiak, Bandrowski, Murawski, Lewandowski) proving that they’re on the rise. Bandrowski was especially commanding in the midfield, though he’s too aggresive at times and gives away free kicks too cheaply. After seeing both games yesterday I prefer Bosacki to Jop as far as our central defence is concerned.

Let me proceed to the today’s draw.

Lech Poznan: they could draw Schalke 04 Gelsenkirchen, Deportivo La Coruna, Aston Villa, SC Heerenveen and Austria Vienna. Shit, they were enormously lucky. From all the teams Austria and SC Heerenveen were the only ones where Lech stood chances of going through. Still, it’s not appropriate to think about future group rivals. Austria eliminated Legia Warsaw a couple of times in the last few years. They’ve got good players in Jacek Bak and…….well, probably they have some players with international experience. Sebastian Mila wasn’t good enough to play regularly there which should be enough of a warning. Austria currently stands 4th in the league with 12 points from 7 games. Chances of going through? 55%

Wisla Krakow: they weren’t so lucky. Wisla could draw Ajax Amsterdam, Tottenham Hotspur, Udinese Calcio, Levski Sofia and FC Copenhagen. I think Tottenham was the worst possible option. I know that they didn’t start well in the league, but Juande Ramos’ teams usually do well in cup competitions. Tottenham invested a lot of money in new players (Modric, Giovanni, Bentley, Gomes) and, sooner or later, they’ll start winning games. The potential there is just too big to lose game after game. The chance for Wisla is that Tottenham’s morale will be low after the whole Berbatov case. But if Spurs play with heart and according to their potential then Wisla is in trouble. Chances of going through? 25%

Four interesting matches ahead of us. As for Lech Poznan, they’ve got a big chance of going through so it should be thrilling till the last minute of the second leg. As for Wisla, we’ll be able to check how Polish league stars look when compared to the Premiership ones. Who knows, maybe they’ll surprise us as they did last Tuesday against Barcelona.

Other news: Ebi Smolarek is supposedly at Bolton today to agree terms about his one year loan move. Very interesting, regarding Ebi’s current situation I hope it goes through.

Radoslaw Matusiak decided to retire from professional football, at least according to his father. I’m waiting for an official confirmation from Radomatu himself, but it would be a horrible decision only proving that there’s a huge problem regarding Matusiak’s mentality. No need to retire if these are only injury problems.