OM were drawn against Chelsea, Spartak Moscow and MŠK Žilina in Group F of the Champions League.
Appearing in hat number 2 for the first time, Olympique de Marseille have a better chance of making their way from the group stages than in recent years.
In their group, the "big fish" is Chelsea, with the perspective of the return of Didier Drogba to the Stade Vélodrome, alongside Nicolas Anelka and all of Carlo Ancelotti’s armada.
After their League and Cup double, Chelsea have picked up this season where they left off last year, with two 6-0 scorelines inflicted upon West Bromwich and Wigan at the start of the Premier League season, despite a loss in the Charity Shield. Clearly, the Olympians will not have an easy task. Especially as the Champions League is the main objective for the London based club, who have never won the competition, losing the 2008 final.
The Olympians were given a slightly easier ride with their remaining opponents, they picked up Spartak Moscow, from hat 3. After having finished 2nd behind Rubin Kazan, the Muscovite team are in the middle of their league campaign, in disappointing form, in 6th place, 14 points behind Zenith, who recently fell to AJ Auxerre. Against OM, Spartak will be counting on their Brazilian striker Welliton, last season’s top scorer with 21 goals. He has already scored 13 goals in 2010, in just 14 encounters.
Finally, OM will face the small team from hat 4: MŠK Žilina. This is the first appearance at this stage of the competition for the Slovakian side, who came through the preliminary round. Last May, the team won their 5th national league title.
group F SCHEDULE
- Match 1
- OM-Spartak
- Date: Wednesday 15 September
- Match 2
- Chelsea-OM
- Date: Tuesday 28 September
- Match 3
- OM-Zilina
- Date: Tuesday 19 October
- Match 4
- Zilina-OM
- Date: Wednesday 3 November
- Match 5
- Spartak-OM
- Date: Tuesday 23 November
- Match 6
- OM-Chelsea
- Date: Wednesday 8 December
The groups
- Group A
- Inter Milan
- SV Werder Bremen
- Tottenham Hotspurs FC
- FC Twente
- Group B
- Olympique Lyonnais
- SL Benfica
- FC Schalke 04
- Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC
- Group C
- Manchester United
- Valencia CF
- Glasgow Rangers
- Bursaspor
- Group D
- FC Barcelona
- Panathinaikos FC
- FC Copenhagen
- FC Rubin Kazan
- Group E
- FC Bayern Munich
- AS Roma
- FC Basel
- CFR 1907 Cluj
- Group F
- Chelsea FC
- Olympique de Marseille
- FC Spartak Moscow
- MSK Zilina
- Group G
- AC Milan
- Real Madrid CF
- Ajax Amsterdam
- AJ Auxerre
- Group H
- Arsenal FC
- FC Shakthar Donetsk
- SC Braga
- Partizan Belgrade
Reactions and team presentations to follow on OM.net
