Champions League: Alex Ferguson, denied passage to Glasgow for the 2002 Champions League final, will return to his home city this season after Manchester United were drawn with Rangers in the group phase of this season's competition.
The Premiership champions will visit their counterparts north of the border on October 22nd, with the return a fortnight later, and, for all Ferguson's friendship with Alex McLeish, his counterpart and former player under him at Aberdeen, his players will be under no illusions as to the significance of the tie for their manager.
As a player in the late 1960s Ferguson spent two and a half years at Ibrox.
McLeish captained Aberdeen under Ferguson's management during the most successful period in the club's history. It is the clubs' first meeting.
Neither club will under-estimate the threat posed by Vfb Stuttgart or the revamped Panathinaikos - "We've been there before and were lucky in March 2001 when we got a 1-1 draw and could have been slaughtered," said Ferguson, though the main interest will be on the latest "Battle of Britain".
The last time an Anglo-Scottish tie was drawn in this competition when Rangers played Leeds in 1992, away fans were excluded from both games. However, while United and Rangers intend to hold talks on security, neither side anticipates imposing a ban on travelling supporters, despite the English champions being traditionally a Catholic club.
Arsenal, who have never gone beyond the quarter-finals, face last season's beaten semi-finalists Internazionale in their opening fixture at Highbury, though trips to Lokomotiv Moscow and Dynamo Kiev are hardly less daunting than that to Milan.
Arsenal have lost in recent years to Spartak Moscow and Shakhtar Donetsk on their travels.
Juan Sebastian Veron and Hernan Crespo, Chelsea's recent Argentinian signings, will face their former club Lazio in Group G with Claudio Ranieri's money-flushed side confident they can progress to the knock-out stages. Besiktas and Sparta Prague make up their quartet.
Celtic's reward for progressing beyond the qualifying rounds is a group with the German champions Bayern Munich, the French title-holders Lyon and Anderlecht of Belgium. Guardian Services
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DRAW
Group A Group E
Bayern Munich MANCHESTER UTD
Lyon Panathiniakos
CELTIC RANGERS
Anderlecht Stuttgart
Group B Group F
ARSENAL Real Madrid
Inter Milan Porto
Dynamo Kiev Marseille
Lokomotiv Moscow Partizan Belgrade
Group C Group G
Deportivo La Coruna Lazio
PSV Eindhoven CHELSEA
AEK Athens Sparta Prague
Monaco Besiktas
Group D Group H
Juventus AC Milan
Galatasaray Celta VIgo
Olympiakos Ajax
Real Sociedad Brugge
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