Juventus to meet Man City in Europa League

Posted Friday, August 27, 2010 by YAHOO Sport

MONACO (AP)—Two-time European Cup champion Juventus will meet big-spending Manchester City in the group stage of the Europa League, in a pairing of the one-time Italian giants with coach Roberto Mancini’s ambitious side from England.

The two clubs were drawn together Friday in Group A along with Austrian side Salzburg and Polish team Lech Poznan.

City spent heavily in the offseason— around 120 million pounds ($187 million)—to try and establish itself among the top English clubs. Among its marquee signings was Italy striker Mario Balotelli, who joined from Inter Milan.

“(City) is a club which has enormous ambitions. It’s not a case of investing one year and then nothing,” Juventus general manager Jean-Claude Blanc said. “There is a continuity and a clear will shown to make the club a European great.”

Juventus, meanwhile, is trying to regain its European luster. In addition to its two European Cups, the Turin club also won Europe’s second-tier competition three times.

“They have a great history and we are very proud to be playing against them. It’s quite daunting to think we will be facing one of the greatest teams ever to have played European football,” City’s football administrator Brian Marwood said. “Everyone knows we have invested in the team and have bought a lot of top-quality players, and it’s fixtures like the Juventus game that we want to be playing on a regular basis.”

City will hope Balotelli’s experience of playing in Italy will give them an edge.

“He’s a young man with an incredibly bright future ahead of him and we will give him every support and help that he needs,” Marwood added.

Balotelli will have unhappy memories of playing Juventus after being the victim of racial taunts from the club’s fans over the past two seasons.

Last season, the Italian league banned a section of Juventus fans for chanting discriminatory slogans about Balotelli during an Italian Cup game against Napoli—despite appeals to stop over the public address system.

Two seasons ago, Juve was ordered to play a home game behind closed doors for another incident of racism aimed at Balotelli, who is of Ghanian descent.

“I think a new season is a chance to show new behavior, and to show also at a European level that the Italian supporters, or more particularly those of Juve, have understood the messages and the sanctions that were handed out,” Blanc said. “Supporting your team is to support your team, and not to make remarks of a racist nature toward other players. We will be extremely demanding and intransigent about this.”

UEFA vowed to crack down on racism during its competitions this season.

“There will be sanctions if racism is used,” UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino said. “UEFA have a zero tolerance to racism. No one is getting away with anything do to with racism.”

Defending champion Atletico Madrid will play in Group B with Bayer Leverkusen, Rosenborg and Aris, while three-time champion Liverpool faces Steaua Bucharest, Napoli and FC Utrecht in Group K.

Liverpool’s new coach, Roy Hodgson, almost led Fulham to the title last season, but Uruguay striker Diego Forlan’s winning goal in extra time gave Atletico the trophy.

“It’s a strong group and I’m certainly looking forward to the games. The media will make us early favourites I’m sure, because of our experience in the Champions League,” Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard said. “We haven’t won a trophy for four years now so it’s important we put a good show on in all the cup competitions.”

Metalist Kharkiv and Debrecen—two clubs with match-fixing convictions this year—are in Group I with former European Cup winner PSV Eindhoven and Sampdoria.

Debrecen had two players suspended over suspicions that arose from last season’s 4-3 home defeat to Fiorentina in a Champions League game.

Metalist Kharkiv and Karpaty Lviv were each deducted nine points and fined $25,000, and all Karpaty players had penalties of $5,000 to $10,000 imposed over an April 2008 game that ended 4-0 to Metalist.

Karpaty was drawn Friday in Group J along with Paris Saint-Germain, former champion Sevilla, and Borussia Dortmund, a former European Cup winner.

“It’s a hard draw, it’s good to face big clubs. Sevilla and Dortmund are logical favorites in this group but we have our chances,” said PSG winger Ludovic Giuly, a Champions League winner with Barcelona in 2006. “I am happy to play a Spanish club again with this great Sevilla team.”