UEFA Cup winner Shakhtar Donetsk has been drawn against Club Bruges, Partizan, and Toulouse in a tough opening group stage of the inaugural Europa League. Friday's draw in Monaco also pitted four-time European champion Ajax against Anderlecht, Dinamo Zagreb and little-known Romanian team Timisoara. The 48 sides – including the 10 losing teams from the Champions League playoff round – were split into four seeding pots, with one seed from each going into the 12 groups. Teams from the same country were kept apart. All games will be played with five match officials in the highest level experiment there has yet been to try to eliminate diving and improve officials' decision-making. The Europa League has replaced the UEFA Cup, with Ukrainian team Shakhtar lifting the last trophy when it beat Werder Bremen in May's final. Werder is in Group L against AustriaVienna, Athletic Bilbao and Nacional of Portugal. Among the other matchups: former European Cup champion Celtic and Hamburg play against each other in Group C; while two-time European Cup winner Benfica takes on Everton in Group I. In Group E, Fulham coach Roy Hodgson will take his side to face FC Basel in Switzerland, where he became a folk hero for leading the national team to the 1994 World Cup Finals. AS Roma is also in the group. In Group F, tensions could run high when Greek team Panathinaikos faces Turkish side Galatasaray. “I realize a clash between a Greek and Turkish team is something special,” Panathinaikos' Dutch coach Henk Ten Cate said. “But we're playing Galatasaray and we have to focus on the team, far away from politics. I think Panathinaikos has well behaved supporters.” The top two teams from each group progress into the last-32 knockout stage in February, to be joined by the eight third-place teams from the Champions League groups. Group stage play begins Sept. 17, with the final scheduled May 12, 2010 at Hamburg's HSH Nordbank Arena.
