Champions welcome Celtic reunion
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Article summary
Group D: AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani is hoping history will repeat itself when the European champions come face to face with Celtic FC once again.
Article body
Past meetings
Milan overcame Celtic 1-0 on aggregate in last season's last 16, having previously got the better of the Scottish team in the 1968/69 and 2004/05 seasons. There is also plenty of history between Milan and a Benfica side they defeated in two previous finals, in 1963 and 1990. As for Celtic, they will face a second opponent from last season in Benfica, whom they finished above in the group stage. Yet manager Gordon Strachan sounded unenthused about another meeting: "We probably wouldn't have wanted to be drawn against the two sides that we faced last year."
Umberto Gandini, Milan managing director
To be honest I think it was a good draw for us. Certainly we are not scared even if there will be some difficult away games. Celtic are a big club, with great history and tradition, and Benfica are the same. However I think we were quite lucky today. It could have been much worse.
José Antonio Camacho, Benfica coach
It will be a very tough group, but a great one too. It's good to play against the European champions as it will be a test for us but Milan have to be careful too - we will fight to finish top. We want to win the first match, of course, but we'll have to wait and see what is going to happen in the other games.
Gordon Strachan, Celtic manager
Obviously it's a tough group and we probably wouldn't have wanted to be drawn against the two sides that we faced last year – AC Milan and Benfica. They are both good teams, but it's also for the fans. They would probably like to have seen us playing some new teams. The benefit is that we know what we are up against; looking at the Milan and Benfica squads, there aren't too many changes from last season and that means we know what we are facing. I've never been up against Shakhtar, but the club has been in Donetsk quite recently and we'll have a look at them over the next few weeks.
Brandão, Shakhtar striker
Neither the team nor the fans should be negative about our fate or the draw. We have been put in a very interesting group because Milan are the only clear favorites while the other three teams are more or less equal. We will give our all to get into the knockout rounds.
