Casillas v Mourinho and Man City’s favour for Man United: Reflecting on the UCL group draw

Group stages of Uefa Champions League will feature Casillas v Mourinho, two Italian clubs in a tough crowd and Ibrahimovic back at home, writes Ian Hawkey.

Manchester United forward Memphis Depay will face old club PSV Eindhoven in the Uefa Champions League group stage. Yves Herman / Reuters

A centime for the thoughts of Iker Casillas as he heard the draw of his new club. Porto, whom Casillas has joined after a 16-year senior career with Real Madrid, will play Chelsea, whose manager is well-known to the Spanish goalkeeper.

It was Mourinho who dropped Casillas, the captain, midway through the coach’s final season in charge of Real, in 2012-13. The pair had a difficult relationship, and their conflict turned into an amplified popularity contest at the Santiago Bernabeu, sections of the crowd singing the name of the player, others in support of Mourinho.

Mourinho won the Uefa Champions League with Porto. So he will hear some applause on his return to the Dragao, where partisans are still making their minds up about Casillas’s value.

Jittery Italy

The draw was not kind to the two clubs from Italy. Though Juventus, by reaching the final last May, boosted the self-esteem of a Serie A which had suffered regular setbacks in the past four years in the Champions League, a now-familiar habit was maintained in the play-offs with Lazio losing out to Bayer Leverkusen.

That means two Italian sides in the last 32, and look what has happened to the other Rome club. Roma meet Leverkusen, who beat last season’s third-placed Serie A side 3-0 on Wednesday. Given that European champions Barcelona are also in Group E, it looks as if Leverkusen must be overcome for Roma to progress.

Juventus are in a tough group, too, with opponents from each of Europe’s top leagues: Spain’s Sevilla, England’s Manchester City and Borussia Monchengladbach of Germany.

Is Ibrahimovic clairvoyant?

Ahead of the draw, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, an icon of Paris-Saint Germain and Sweden, said on social media how much he looked forward to hearing the Champions League anthem played in Malmo, his native city.

PSG landed in the same group as Malmo, who are back in the group phase and will be thrilled to welcome not only their most famous son but also Real Madrid. Facing Malmo, the club he left for Ajax in 2001, may prompt Ibrahimovic to stop and reflect. There is the fact that, with the six clubs he has played for since, he has won the league in all but two of the past 14 seasons but has yet to win the Champions League.

Mixed emotions in Manchester

Uefa’s new seeding system, in which the winners of the top seven or eight leagues are made top seeds, looked as if it might hurt some clubs with histories of excellence. Yet it did not damage Manchester United, who drew probably the weakest of the top seeds, PSV Eindhoven, whose best player last season, Memphis Depay, is now at United.

United may soon receive another favour, by Manchester City, if they seal the transfer of Kevin de Bruyne from Wolfsburg, who look the strongest opponent for United in Group B.

Expanding Europe, but not building bridges

Astana, Kazakhstan, is nearly 6,500 kilometres from Lisbon. Supporters of Benfica, in Group C with Astana, the first Kazakh club to make this stage of the Champions League, should be prepared to take an extra day off work to attend that away game.

If Astana’s presence encourages Uefa to feel efforts to promote the game in the east are working, there was an added complication yesterday. Clubs from Ukraine and Russia were kept apart amid the ongoing political conflict. There will be hope at least three of Zenit St Petersburg, CSKA Moscow, Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kiev are eliminated by Christmas, to avoid awkwardness.

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