It's that time of the year again, the time when Santa comes knocking and also the time when everyone looks back at the year that was and takes note of the joy and sorrow that it has given us. It has been a while since I've posted and I thought this is the best time to write a round up on the year that was as a Man United fan.

Following today's draws in the European club competitions one can't help but feel that there could've been some tastier matches upon the horizon going into the knockout rounds of each competition. Nonetheless the teams that do remain in each tournament will have their eyes firmly focused on the big prize.

The draws for the 2011/12 UEFA Champions League Round of 16 and the Europa League Round of 32 took place in Nyon, Switzerland on Friday. In the Champions League, holders FC Barcelona meet German club Bayer 04 Leverkusen as they continue their title defence. Arguably the round's most competitive series sees seven time winners AC [.

Let's rewind back to August, in the days leading up to the (delayed) Serie A season. If someone told you that Udinese would be tied for first place two games before the winter break, you would have probably laughed, and rightfully so, considering that the Friuli side lost two of their best players in Alexis Sanchez and Gökhan Inler to Barcelona and Napoli respectively.

The two Manchester clubs have been sensationally dumped out of the UEFA Champions League following the final round of matches this evening.

Three-time European champions Manchester United are out of this year's tournament having suffered a 2-1 defeat away to Swiss champions FC Basle 1893. United only needed a point to progress but found themselves two goals down with ten minutes of the match remaining, with Basle's Marco Streller and Alexander Frei getting the goals, before Phil Jones pulled one back to make it an anxious finish for the Swiss side.

Tomorrow's encounter at the Etihad stadium will prove to be one of Manchester City's most important in its recent history, needing a win against an already-through Bayern Munich side as winners of Group A. Eyes in Manchester will also been on the Villarreal-Napoli tie where a Napoli win would eliminate the Citizens from the competition.

Betting sites has tipped Tottenham to take home the silverware, but the odds are now against them even exiting the group stages.

With two weeks until the final matches of the Europa League group stages, 14 clubs have clinched spots in the knockout rounds of the cup with a game to spare. With the eight teams that finish third in their UEFA Champions League groups transferring over to Europe's second-tier competition, that leaves 10 spots.

Every week I thought I'll write a post about one team outside the big four and this week I thought STOKE CITY should be the team that opens the account for this series. Why Stoke? Stoke re-entered the prem in 2008 and have stayed up for two seasons now, their style of play and their track suit wearing manager are all very catchy and show character.

Shamrock Rovers left back Enda Stevens, who will be joining Aston Villa in January 2012, has been named in the Irish Premier Division Team of the Year and nominated for the Professional Footballers' Association of Ireland (PFAI) Young Player of the Year award.
21 year old Stevens has remained with Rovers whilst they compete in the Europa League.

For those looking to spot Americans in action overseas, check the Europa League—it's televised, great teams abound and, well, there are Americans, too. The elusive soccer grail, as it were. Europa League matches offer rare chances to see national team expats competing against high-caliber opponents on a real live TV.

Thursday evening sees Lazio continue their Europa League campaign in Portugal against Sporting Lisbon. The Rome side will be anxious to get their European campaign back on track after a disappointing draw at home to Romanian side FC Vaslui in their first outing, but will also be incredibly wary of Sporting who are clearly the other big club in the group.

European football's governing body UEFA has decided against allowing Swiss club FC Sion back into the 2011-12 UEFA Europa League, thus maintaining Glasgow Celtic's place in Group I of the competition which begins this Thursday.

FC Sion qualified for this season's competition following an aggregate victory against the Scottish giants in the Play-Off round but were subsequently expelled following a protest from the Parkhead club who claimed that a number of the Swiss club's players were ineligible.

The draw for the 2011-12 UEFA Europa League group stage was made in Monaco today. 2009 winners Atlético de Madrid are arguably the biggest club involved in this season's competition and they will have been relatively pleased with a draw which placed them in Group I alongside Italian Champions League drop-outs Udinese Calcio, French side Stade Rennais and Swiss side FC Sion.

Last year Brøndby was eliminated from the Europa League in the most pathetic way, after being up, and then fucking it all up when it counted.Now, this bunch of useless idiots have done it again, and this time against an even worse opponent than last season, the unknown Austrian side SV Ried. Brøndby had lost the first match 2-0 in Austria, but midway through the second half they were 4-0 up, and

The draws for the first two qualifying rounds of the two main European club competitions were made in Nyon, Switzerland this afternoon just 23 days after FC Barcelona claimed their fourth UEFA Champions League crown at Wembley Stadium.

The UEFA Champions League begins on June 28th with two-legged ties involving the bottom four ranked national champions from UEFA'S Co-Efficient table which measures the progress of each country's clubs in European competition over a five year period.

The 2011 UEFA Europa league final probably did not raise much interest outside Ireland (where it took place) and Portugal, from where the two finalists, FC Porto and Braga, came from.I must admit that the match was also a big disappointment. Porto's 1-0 victory was fully deserved. Although Braga was organised, when Porto went ahead on a goal by the Colombian goal machine Falcao, Braga had nothing

This week is the first time in really long that we have NOT had a midweek match of any import Citeh vs Stoke, the Manchester version obvisoulsy does not qualify as a 'match'. That's left our football energy levels dangerously low, without its usual midweek adrenalin boost. Even United-lite vs Schalke was fun, especially Anderson's massively-minimalistic, salsa-type, whatever-the-hell-that-was celebration.

The constant stream of comparisons between current FC Porto coach André Villas-Boas and his mentor José Mourinho are set to continue following the Portuguese club's UEFA Europa League triumph over compatriots Sporting Braga. Radamel Falcao claimed the only goal of the game on the stroke of half-time to secure FC Porto their second success in this competition, adding to the UEFA Cup won with Mourinho in 2003.

We lamented a bit last week over the close of the (European) club season, with most of the big leagues decided (and after the weekend, France (Lille) and the Netherlands (Ajax) also crowning champions). So what else is a CultFootball fan to look to, aside from the upcoming Champions League final (10 days away!

It's an all-Portuguese Europa League affair tonight (quit the groaning OK, we know all the glamour is in next Saturday's CL finale showdown but you can't ignore these equally hardworking tipos!) As always, the Portuguese press including A Bola (who do things like crawl into Cristiano Ronaldo's private jet, among other things) came up with a pretty interesting "ode to Dublin" on today's front cover.

Before I proceed I want to mention that this article is mostly speculation about the Champions League draw and the teams in it. There won't be much about Arsenal.

Ok with that out of the way I thought I'll jot down some thoughts I had about the Champions League quarter-final draw. While the draw is held live and involves some big names associated with the game, I often get the feeling that it is, at least partially, rigged.

Ducky's Note: Yes, it's me, with a note again. But hey, if it's to introduce another contributor to the growing BigFourZa family, then I'm glad to keep noting away to glory. Utkarsh is our latest writer from the Red part of Merseyside, and he promises to never let us walk alone for the Liverpool section of this blog anymore.

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It is a question which many have asked for a while but which UEFA seemingly wish to ignore for the time being. Nevertheless it is an important issue which surrounds the future existance of European football's two major comeptitions. Should the winners of the UEFA Europa League gain an automatic berth into the following season's UEFA Champions League?

Greek side Aris Thessaloniki and English adversaries Manchester City have already got the UEFA Europa League Round of 32 ball rolling after playing out a dull goalless stalemate on Tuesday night. Now attention turns to the rest of the round and Stoppage Time International Football Blog previews the remaining ties.