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Arsenal to face Udinese in Champs League playoff
Arsenal will play Udinese in the Champions League playoff round, and four-time winner Bayern Munich was drawn against FC Zurich on Friday
AP Published in Ahram Online on 05 - 08 - 2011

Lyon received perhaps the toughest draw, against a match-sharp Rubin Kazan which is midway through the Russian league season.
Arsenal club secretary David Miles said the Gunners were happy to avoid the long trip to Russia.
“It would have been difficult. But we won't underestimate (Udinese) at all. The draw gives us the home leg first and hopefully we will take a lead over there,” Miles said.
Villarreal will travel to Denmark for the first leg against Champions League newcomer Odense. Twente will host two-time winner Benfica in the first leg.
In a separate 10-team draw for national champions, Copenhagen was drawn against Czech newcomer Viktoria Plzen.
First-leg matches are played Aug. 16 or 17, and the returns on Aug. 23 or 24.
Ten playoff winners will join 22 teams with direct entry to the group stage, which is drawn Aug. 25 in Monaco.
Arsenal, the 2006 Champions League runner-up, and Udinese have never met in a competitive match.
The English side has a slight edge with the Premier League scheduled to begin next weekend, whereas Udinese's Serie A campaign starts Aug. 28.
“We will make our best effort to prepare our team in the best way,” Udinese general manager Franco Collavini said. “We respect Arsenal. It's one of the most important clubs in Europe.”
Udinese, which was not seeded in the draw, qualified for the Champions League by finishing fourth in Serie A. The club then sold star winger Alexis Sanchez to Barcelona and key midfielder Gokhan Inler to Napoli.
“We are working to complete our squad by August 31. We're not running to complete our squad for the (Champions League) playoffs,” Collavini said.
Bayern Munich received a favorable pairing with Zurich, which lost its first three matches in the Swiss league this season before eliminating Belgium's Standard Liege in the third qualifying round.
“We have good chances of reaching the group stage,” Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes said.
Still, he cautioned that “Swiss football has great value” and noted that Zurich finished only just behind FC Basel last season, saying “that speaks for the quality of the club.”
“We will watch the team closely at the weekend,” Heynckes said.
In other pairings of national champions, Wisla Krakow plays APOEL, Maccabi Haifa faces Genk, Dinamo Zagreb plays 1979 runner-up Malmo and BATE Borisov faces Sturm Graz.

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