Well we all know how the competition started but the tournament kicked off in earnest on Sunday evening with the host nation Angola entertaining Mali. Hopes were high after all the political wrangling that engulfed the weekend, football could return to the forefront. What no-one expected was a series of breathless games and major shocks that have turned the Cup Of Nations on its head.

Angola stormed in to a 4-0 lead in the opening game and the home fans were jubilant. When Manucho hit a penalty in the 74th minute, Mali looked down and out, shocked to the core by the host nation. Yet by full time, Angola were delighted to hear the final whistle, after an extraordinary fightback saw the The Eagles score 4 goals in the last 15 minutes. Barcelona’s Seidou Keita scored a brace, with Freddie Kanoute scoring and Mustapha Yatabare hitting the equaliser in the fourth minute of injury time.

It really was a breathless encounter that hardly stopped for a second, a delightful and passionate affair that seems to have set the template for this years tournament. Monday saw Group B kick off and the shocks just kept on coming. The Ivory Coast struggled to a draw against unfancied Burkina Faso in a one sided encounter, but it was a massive result for The Stallions. Ivory Coast had 21 shots but couldn’t find the back of the net and Marseille’s Bakari Kone missed several gilt edged chances to win the match.

In Mondays other game, Algeria were smashed to pieces by Malawi, 3-0. It was a disturbing performance to see the World Cup qualifiers so easy picked apart after the Algerian goalkeeper gifted the opening goal by smashing a clearance against Essau Kanyenda who squared the ball for an easy goal for Russel Mwafulirwa. After that, the Algerians couldn’t get going and by the time Malawi made it 3-0, they were looking like the final whistle couldn’t come quick enough.

The Algerian manager has come under some criticism for blaming the weather for his teams bad performance, but as it has been pointed out, he’d only got himself to blame. If you playing in a humid country, would you prepare by holding your base in a chilly South of France? No, I thought not!

Yesterdays’ clashes saw Group C enter the fray and finally, one of the favourites delivered. Nigeria took the lead against Egypt in the heavyweight clash after 12 minutes, but that was as good as it got. Egypt just kept purring and showed that even without Mido and Amr Zaki, they can still score goals. Egyptian legend Ahmed Hassan, winning his 167th international cap, set one goal up and scored another as the Pharaohs cantered to a 3-1 win. What did surprise me though was the ovation that greeted Kanu when he came on from the Angolan crowd. There is no doubting how much of an icon in African football he is after playing for 3 of Europes most illustrious clubs, Ajax, Inter and Arsenal.

The second game in Group C saw Mozambique and Benin clash and 90 minutes later, both countries were still waiting for their first win in African Cup Of Nations history. It was another super game though, despite some dodgy goalkeeping, as a 2-2 draw was probably a fair result. Despite the relative weakness of both sides, Nigeria will know that a slip up could see them crash out in the group stages, for the first time since 1963.

Yet, probably the biggest shock of the first round of matches happened this afternoon. Cameroon, Samuel Eto’o and all were stunned by some comedy defending that allowed Gabon, ranked 62nd in the world, to snatch a 1-0 win. It was a heroic performance after Daniel Cousin, of Hull City, had scored as Gabon dug in and held out for a famous win. Until today, I didn’t realise they were managed by former French legend, Alain Giresse and he’ll have enjoyed the win over compatriot Paul Le Guen.

Finally, Zambia and Tunisia fought another fairly even draw that was a positive result for the Zambians. Despite the recent troubles that Tunisia have had in world football, they are still one of Africa’s key footballing nations. Zambia will be delighted with the 1-1 result but it will be tempered by the fact they have to face a wounded Cameroon next. Cameroon know they need to win, and well to have a hope of qualifying.

So there you have it, all four of the countries that have qualified for the World Cup have managed a total of 1 point this week. We’ve had 22 goals in 7 games, no sendings off and some dynamite games. All the big countries now have to pick themselves up and show everyone that they deserve their billing, otherwise some very famous footballers will be coming home extremely early.

Group A

Bayern Munchen
Juventus
Bordeaux
Maccabi Haifa

Group B

Manchester United
CSKA Moskow
Besiktas
Wolfsburg

Group C

AC Milan
Real Madrid
Marseille
FC Zurich

Group D

Chelsea
Porto
Atletico Madrid
APOEL

Group E

Liverpool
Lyon
Fiorentina
Debrecen

Group F

Barcelona
Internazionale
Dynamo Kiev
Rubin Kazan

Group G

Sevilla
Rangers
Stuttgart
Unirea Urziceni

Group H

Arsenal
AZ Alkmaar
Olympiakos
Standard Liege

Reaction

Manchester United along with Arsenal have fairly straightforward groups and both should be looking to come out on top.

Chelsea have a couple of tough away trips to Porto and Madrid, while APOEL will prove to be Group D’s whipping boys.

Liverpool have a very tricky draw, Lyon spent big in the summer and thrashed Anderlecht in the qualifiers, plus Fiorentina are always a tough team, though I would expect Liverpool to progress as winners.

Other highlights include Zlatan Ibrahimovic returning to Inter and Kaka facing his beloved Milan. While Scottish representatives Rangers will be looking to progress and have a real chance of doing so.

Your thoughts on the draw please.

Admit it, after the lacklustre opening day game against Stoke City, you simply couldn’t see Burnley picking up anything from their next 2 games with Everton and Manchester United visiting Turf Moor. They were tough games, that most established Premiership sides wouldn’t be relishing to have back to back so how the Clarets fans must have felt, I can only imagine. However, a quick look at the league table shows the facts. Played 3, won 2, drawn 0, lost 1, Scored 2, Conceded 2.

What a delightful surprise Burnley have been already and I’m delighted to see just how well they’ve done. Of course, Manchester United bossed the game, but they couldn’t score. Chances came and went, a penalty was saved by the Beast in the Burnley net. Brian Jansen will break opposition strikers hearts throughout the rest of the season but it’s edifying to see Turf Moor rocking so early in the season. No one wants to see promoted teams hammered so soon but Burnley are loving it so far.

Of course, the knockers will be queuing up to get the pessimism in as quickly as the pints of    Moorhouse were probably going down yesterday around the town. Many a fan will have awoken fighting the effects of a Pendle Witches hangover, but still smiling like a Cheshire Cat. When you’ve just beaten the defending League Champions and then the most consistent side outside of the top 4 over the last 5 seasons, this feeling will take some beating.

No-one, other than Blackburn fans I suspect,  would have taken any satisfaction if Burnley would have been hammered in the first 3 games. As Hull City showed last season, winning the play offs seems to see you hit the ground running when the season kicks off. Burnley are living the dream, teams like the Clarets aren’t supposed to get in to the top tier but thankfully football will always throw a spanner in the works.

Whilst Hull City beat Arsenal last season, the size of Burnley’s achievements shouldn’t be understated. Manchester United don’t lose to teams like Burnley, they always fashion something to save their skins but they couldn’t manage this time. The easy money was on Everton steam rollering Burnley after the opening day hammering Arsenal handed them at Goodison. That didn’t happen either.

I know people were saying this was going to be the most open Premiership but I don’t think anyone anticipated the start Coyle’s men have had. When the fans see the newly published fixture list in June, they all cast their eyes and begin to work out where the points will come from. I find it hard to believe that any fan of the Clarets would have gone for the last six points  in a month of Sundays.

The addition of Andre Bikey adds a bit more steel to the backline, but this is no team of mugs. A smattering of experienced heads, fearless youth and canny international players gives Burnley more quality than people want to admit. Martin Patterson had Everton’s defence on the run and Wade Elliott has a classy range of passing. Tyrone Mears didn’t spend a year at Marseille for a laugh and Coyle did well to get him in.

Of course Burnley are going to have a blip, though god forbid it’s as bad as the one Hull City have finally put to bed. Of course, they rode their luck against United but they deserved the points against Everton. Yet this is what being a fan is all about.  A visit to Chelsea beckons this weekend and it will be interesting to see just how they’ll hack it before they visit Anfield. Even with two defeats in the next two games, a return of 6 points from those first five fixtures will stand them in good stead for the remainder of the season. Keep smiling Clarets fans, I think more happy hangovers beckon this season.

Could Manchester City finally put their 33 year major trophy drought to bed this season by winning the UEFA Cup this season? Why not, what  with Ajax crashing out last night at the hands of Marseille and Zenit St Petersburg and CSKA Moscow losing today, the competition for the trophy is getting into the nitty gritty stage and it seems to be opening up for City. Mark Hughes side has been wildly inconsistent, putting 6 past Portsmouth and 5 past Hull City, but dumped out of the League Cup by Brighton on penalties and were humiliated at home 3-0 by Nottingham Forest in the F.A. Cup but they’ve been impressive in the UEFA Cup both at home and abroad this season. With only one away win in the league, it’s been a strange season for the City faithful.

Tonight they travel to Northern Jutland to face Aalborg with a 2-0 lead and a chance to move into the Quarter Finals for a real crack at the trophy. Yet, Manchester City have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory which is unparalled in English Football that has seen their fans develop a very healthy ability to laugh at themselves. Surely this could be their season to finally put a proper smile on faces of the City faithful? It’s certainly a weaker UEFA Cup than it could have been with AC Milan, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Fiorentina, Bordeaux and Valencia all being removed from the competition before we even reached the last 16.I don’t think Mark Hughes will be upset to see any of those sides out at all. Their first 11 is certainly as good as some of the remaining teams in the competition, maybe one of the best, so it’s not impossible to imagine City lifting the trophy in Turkey on May 20th.

City though have perhaps received a little too much stick this season for me. Sure they’ve become the richest club in the world but it’s still a transitional season for them. Thankfully for us, Chief Executive Gary Cook seems to have kept a very low profile after his rather childish comments about AC Milan and Kaka in January, which is a blessing for us all. His rather acidic nature and bombastic attitude doesn’t sit well people and attracts as much criticism as it deserves, but Hughes has also had a fair amount of flak, unfairly I feel. It’s a learning curve for everyone at Manchester City, ever since the Robinho signing, they’ve suddenly moved onto a different level but they’ve got their best chance of some serious silverware for a long time in the UEFA Cup.

If they can negotiate tonight’s away leg, which knowing City, is no forgone conclusion, then the key teams to avoid are Werder Bremen and whoever wins in the tie of the round, Galatasaray v SV Hamburg. Martin Jol’s team have a lot to do and need to score in Turkey tonight to have any chance to get through but if they do, then they’ll become the favourite for the cup. If City can avoid those teams, then reaching the final becomes a realistic proposition for Mark Hughes. I hope they do get there, he’s dealt with rumour and counter rumour all season with supreme patience, fending questions about his future, transfers, ongoing issues with certain big name players and the change in expectations once Manchester City were ought by the Abu Dhabi United Group, with courtesy.He deserves a bit of luck after everything that’s been thrown at him throughout the season.

I wish them all the best in Europe and hope we get a Hamburg and Manchester City final for the last ever UEFA Cup final before we welcome the Europa League next season.

Where does this idea of a European Super League keep coming from? Scratch that, WE know where the idea comes from, The European Club Association, the collective of 135 clubs dotted around Europe, keeps trying to push for this dreadful idea to come into fruition. I can’t think of anything I’d rather watch less than a 3 league competition of 60 European sides week in, week out played out in front of empty stadiums on television.

It’s an idea that’s been thrown about since the formation of the Champions League back in 1992 and reappears with regularity to terrify national league associations the length and breadth of Europe. For me, it’s a complete acknowledgement that certain people who own or run certain football clubs have a complete disregard for the bread and butter supporter who turn up every week. According the reports that appeared in today’s Sun, it seems A.C. Milan are the main movers behind this attempt to put the wind up U.E.F.A aided and abetted by the quiet and modest owner of Lyon, Jean-Michel Aulas.

Aulas has been slating the strength of the French League this week, blaming them for Lyon’s exit from the Champions League. Whilst I appreciate that Ligue 1 isn’t as strong as La Liga, The Premiership or Serie A, it’s a bit rich for the owner of Frances richest club to blame everyone else for their tactical naivety in the Champions League. Especially as this season has seen the closest title race in France for 5 years and sees Lyon hanging on to the top spot by a point from Marseille and PSG.

The irony of the ECA is that the Premiership has 5 members, The obvious big 4 but oddly Newcastle United are our fifth member, which for me makes a mockery of the whole set up. I could understand Everton, Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester City vying for membership, but Newcastle United? I have yet to meet anyone who supports a Premier League club who would swap the Premiership for a Euro League of 38 games, the appetite for such competition simply exists in the boardrooms of greedy football clubs, detached from the true feelings of the fans. Sure, European competition can give us some truly wonderful nights of great football, but that’s what makes it so special.

It’s the desert to the main meal, a delightful bonus that can offer continental delight to the fans and gives us a different type of atmosphere. I have to say Anfield and Old Trafford’s atmosphere in a Champions League game can be spine tingling, Liverpool have thrived on such atmosphere’s since their magical routing of St Etienne in the 1977 European Cup Quarter Final Second League. Yet, we’ve seen this season half empty stadiums in the group stages of the Champions League across Europe for games where the results didn’t matter, so how would the European Super League change that? Who would be in the top league? Surely it wouldn’t change a thing in regards to the traditional power houses of European football still carving the spoils between them every year, Porto’s magical win in 2004 excluded.

I honestly believe that if the clubs are so determined to break out of their national leagues, then the leagues should let them go. Would the Premiership really die if the big 4 left and allowed the rest of the league to suddenly become competitive overnight? Would French football really miss Lyon? The Catalans wouldn’t care for it if they couldn’t play Real Madrid, Athletico, Valencia and Espanyol, Italian football, riddled with corruption and rampant hooliganism, couldn’t seriously consider bi-monthly visiting sides and the protection of any fan brave and rich enough to attempt a visit to the Stadio Olympico can they?

The one trick they miss here is that in European football, they all whine about the strength of the Premiership but every other league is far more weighted in the protection of its bigger clubs than England. The Premiership’s collective TV deal allows everyone from Manchester United to Watford to receive a flat fee regardless of the clubs size. Sure they receive additional monies for TV appearances and finishing positions, but no other major league in Europe does that. All the major clubs have individual deals, which in turn makes the leagues weaker by comparison, making them weaker when facing English clubs in Europe. They have an easy ride at home, so can’t cope with the raised level of performance they meet against Premiership sides.

To make European Football more competitive, UEFA needs to re-introduce collective TV deals for all leagues, then Jean-Michel Aulas will really have something to complain about when Lyon finish 6th in Ligue 1.

The group stage of the Champions League begins today with several intriguing matches as well as the return of Chelsea and Liverpool to continental football.

Be sure to set your DVRs for the following matches on TV today in the United States (all times eastern).

• Bordeaux vs. Chelsea: 2:30pm ESPN2/ESPN360.com
• Sporting Lisbon vs. Barcelona: 2:30pm- ESPN Deportes and 5pm ESPN Classic
• Marseille vs. Liverpool: 2:30pm Setanta (replayed at 7:15pm Setanta).
• PSV Eindhoven vs. Atletico Madrid: 5pm ESPN Deportes
• Panathanaikos vs. Inter Milan: 5:35pm Setanta, and 7:30pm ESPN Deportes

If you’ll be watching – or have watched – today’s matches, please share your thoughts, insight, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

In the meantime, be sure to visit our sister site Champions League Talk for previews of Group C, Group B and Group A, as well as how Sporting Lisbon could cause an upset today against Barcelona.