A Champion League Group Only a Cypriot Team Will Like

The 2017 Champions League draw has taken place and Tottenham get Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund.  Considering the alternative draw was Barcelona and Juventus it was going to be a tough draw either way.

The only team that will be delighted will be Apoel from Nicosia, Cyprus.  Not only do they have the opportunity to be a king-maker in this group if they inflict a surprise result, but they will travel to the three huge stadiums and make their Chairman very happy for purely financial reasons.

No one accepts Apoel to finish in the top 2, so it means that for Spurs to get through one big European team must be eliminated.  The same situation awaits for Roma who ended up with Juventus and Barcelona.  At least this year if Spurs finish third they can justify their draw selection but last year they were favorites to go through what was a weak group and they still finished third.

It all depends now on whether Tottenham get two or three players this week in the transfer window that will really make a difference.  Hopefully no repeat of last years duds that exceeded $50 million in outlay.  By the end of the transfer window a couple of those duds will be gone.

This then leaves Spurs getting used to playing at Wembley Stadium and teams like Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund befit such a stadium's historic status as a major global stadium.  That Spurs are not building a 75,000 seater stadium is puzzling because when Manchester United expand, they will probably exceed 100,000, but it is possible that local community ordinances may have a cap to the number of fans allowed.  At Wembley last week because Brent Council saw Tottenham vs Chelsea as a high risk match in terms of crowd trouble, the gate was lowered to 70,000 as a security precaution, but at least at Wembley, the Tottenham team will get used to playing in front of 90,000+ crowds.

It also means the most welcome return of Gareth Bale though playing against Tottenham.  The outlandish speculation is that if Bale returns to England, Tottenham have first refusal, but of course they are going to refuse when Manchester United offer Real Madrid $140 million, and why would Tottenham pay $50,000 more for a player they sold to Real Madrid.  Having seen Real Madrid polish off Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup,  this Madrid contingent look better than ever.  So there is no better measure of where Tottenham is as European big boy than to measure up against Real Madrid in two competitive matches. 

Yet to become a European big boy, the team has to begin paying big boy wages and that is something that investment group who owns Tottenham are probably not going to do.  Unless Tottenham sell to a country or even better to Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) what is developing now maybe as good as it gets for a Spurs fan.  This year there will be FIVE British clubs in the Champions League thanks to Manchester United's Europa League qualification.  Yet the progress of British clubs recently in European competition has been very power, pulling down Britain's European coefficient.  That coefficient enables them to have four representatives, but if Italian teams begin to do well and British teams keep failing, that coefficient may eventually lose the Premier League one spot and give Serie A in Italy an additional Champions League spot.

Whatever the results, the big winners in today's draw is tiny Cypriot Club called Apoel.  So now the battle is set to commence and the new Champions League season is set to begin.