I'm waiting at Zurich airport to fly home back to the snow even if we've got loads here. Of course it makes little difference in Switzerland but the flight I often catch to gatwick was cancelled. Luckily (though not when I heard about the strike which is now off) I'm flying with BA and Heathrow seems in better shape than other airports. Coming back to see my dad but will miss Hull game as I've already had my ST sold as I wasn't expected to attend. Oh well never mind. The Basel game was good on Wednesday night but if you let Zamora score twice you ain't gonna win a lot of games. Today is also CL draw day and I really want Stuttgart for many reasons. Not that good, Jens, Gross the new manager and it's easy to get to from Basel. Fingers crossed.

As most of you are probably aware, the guys at UEFA have been told by Michel Platini that he didn't like the current format and that more of the "Champions" should get into the group stages of the competition. The little UEFA men went away and came up with a new qualifications system to ensure Champions from Estonia and Latvia would have more of a chance of reaching the group stages and making it slightly harder for the "big leagues" to get all the places.

As we finished 4th we now go into the 4th qualification round which is part of the "Best Placed Path" - see here for details! 10 teams (runners up of their leagues and the 3rd placed Russian team) from countries such as Greece,Belgium, Scotland and Holland play in the 3rd qualifying round for the right to meet the fourth placed sides from England, Spain and Italy plus the 3rd placed teams from France & Germany - see here for details of the countries.

What this all means (so far) is that the following five:

Arsenal, Athletico Madrid, Genoa (or maybe Fiorentina - see comments), Lyon & Stuttgart

will play the winners of the 5 games between:

3rd Place in Russia (still playing the league), 2nd Place Romanian (Still playing) , Sporting Lisbon, FC Twente, Celtic, Sivasspor (?), Ukranian 2nd place (still playing - probably Shakthar!), Standard Liege, PAOK, Sparta Prague

There is no clear ruling of whether there is any seeding for these games and I've seen contradictory reports on this. The Arsenal games are 18th/19th August and 25/26 August. If we lose we do enter the EUROPA LEAGUE!

Well that was a fun 24 hours in Stuttgart. Starting and ending with the perfect timing of the DB (nope our old Dutch master hasn't got his own train company - mind you he should do with his fear of flying) train service from Basel. Can you imagine a UK train connection that allows a mere 8 minutes between train arrival & departure at the connecting station! Anyway I had a little wander around the town and can heartily recommend a visit there, particularly the Schlossgarten, a beautiful sight (& sights!) on a very sunny day.

I'd made contact with a Stuttgart fan, Oliver (the one to the left of me as you look), via good old AWIMB and after a few phone calls we met up next to the ground at the wonderful Polizeisportverein (PSV) where you can drink and get a wurst with major queues. When I arrived there was even a "veterans" game taking place on the sport club's pitch. As kick off approached we all went to the ground but, unfortunately, the away gate was a 500m detour around the houses and so I just made it in time.

As for the game itself, it wasn't too bad for a pre-season friendly and it was good to get a look at some new faces (Nasri, Vela, Wilshere etc) and some old ones (big wave to Adebayor who looked the worst of all our strikers last night but the others had more training and less talking to their agents). After a sluggish first half the game came to life after Stuttgart scored and taking into account the fact that the opposition had started competitive fixtures already (Intertoto, it was an impressive 3-1 win. At half time I even swapped shirts with a Stuttgart fan who was desperate to get one of old kits. In fact, I was amazed by the number of German gooners I met - every time I said hello to someone in an Arsenal shirt it was invariably a German accented response!

 

So, all in all, a truly great time was had by all. I suppose we should thank Mercedes Benz as it was their new sponsorship of the stadium (much to the disgust of some Stuttgart fans) that led to this fixture. Anyway off to watch the highlights from last night's German TV (SWR) and fingers crossed for Basel in the draw tomorrow (currently they are 1-1 after the away leg).

Sorry it's going to have to be very brief this morning as I'm rushing out soon to travel to Stuttgart. Have been in contact with a local fan there who has suggested some good places for pre-match beers so it should be an enjoyable and warm evening. I'll hopefully have some pictures from the game up later this week.

Interest in Basel is all about the upcoming Champions League qualifier against Gothenburg tonight & next week. Hopefully they get a good result tonight in the away leg and a decent draw on Friday morning (come on Arsenal, come on!) and I'll be at the return leg next week at St Jakob.

Bis Morgen

Just about a month after the end of Euro 2008 and we discover today that UEFA managed to make a cool €250M from the whole affair. This will justify (in their eyes anyway) the complete bastardisation of the tournament, like so many others (as we'll see in Bejing soon), by the corporate sponsors. If selling out to Carlsberg only gets you that amount I would say it's not really worth it and we can all have drunk some decent beer. It's also interesting that they claim to betrying everything to deal with the black market but yet refuse to see the evidence that many of these tickets get there via sponsors & football associations.

Just finalising plans for the trip to Stuttgart tomorrow and I feel that the game may be a tad tougher than the U16 XI Arsenal played yesterday. I'm hoping Jens Lehmann will be there to greet us and to allow us to say farewell once more. No idea how many Arsenal fans will be there as it's a long way for a friendly but there are many who "never miss a game", so we'll see.

Most of the rumours running in L'Equipe seem , much like the English press, to be concerned with how Tottenham are going to spend the money gathered from the sale of Keane to Liverpool. The paper also reports that the FFF are not going to allow the appeal of PSG against their removal from the League Cup.

Here in Switzerland there is some reporting of Arsenal's possible interest in Gökhan Inler though it all seems rather tenuous with supposed interest from a host of other clubs too. I also noticed a photo of a sending off in the Young Boys game and saw that the ref was female, still a remarkably unusual occurrence these days. It turns out that she also officiated the first leg UEFA Cup game with Manchester City, so now you know who Nicole Petignat is!

Not entirely sure why I'm going to a pre-season friendly this week other than it's not that far away from Basel and I've never been to Stuttgart. You see you rarely discover anything particularly interesting or useful at pre-season games. It may even be that it it is even less likely with Arsenal due to the way Arsene views these games. There are entirely for the preparation of the forthcoming season, they are not to be used for selling shirts or commercial ideals (see Chelsea & Man Utd for long gruelling trips around the world) and so are essentially glorified training sessions. Not that this seems to mean anything to some Arsenal fans who bemoan the result first and foremost with not a clue of the bigger picture - shame on you.

Anyway I've a return ticket to Stuttgart booked (on Saturday, not 11 months in advance, for just 50€ - the equivalent distance in the UK is London to Stoke at about £100) and a small hotel to stay so that I can have a few beers and enjoy what there is of the town.

Of course, it will get me out of Summer mode (Le Tour, Open Golf & Cricket) and into football mode though I'm lying really as I never feel the season has started until it starts to get cold and dark.

L'Equipe reports that William Gallas has said "It's all my fault" (well nearly) on Arsenal TV and that he has learnt a lot from last season. This, of course, seems to have nothing to do with the fact that Arsene Wenger hasn't officially announced the captain for the forthcoming season. The paper is also reporting the news that is all over the UK press that Robbie Keane will be joining Liverpool for some silly fee of £20M - I'm not sure what has persuaded Liverpool the need to spend suc a huge amount on a decent, but not great, player. Meanwhile, a Swiss player at Liverpool, Phillipp Degen, has apparently suffered another injury blow.