Our former goalkeeper, who won the competition in 2012 and is now our technical and performance advisor, was involved in the draw process that grouped the Blues with Ajax from the Netherlands, Valencia from Spain and Lille from France.‘I think it is a very even group,’ was Cech’s verdict. ‘All the teams have a lot of quality and it is one of those groups where everybody can beat everybody so this makes it very interesting but we can be satisfied with the draw. We avoided long travel so that was one of the positives.’On Chelsea having never played Ajax or Lille before in a competitive match he said:‘They are new teams for the Chelsea fans and for the club so it is going to be interesting encounters but Ajax had a fantastic season last season so they will want to repeat that, but we are looking forward to the challenge and I hope we are going to go through.‘We will like to do the best that is possible, so obviously compete in every game, try to win and go through the group stage and once you reach the knockout stages, anything can happen. So we will see how we go but the first target is to try to go through the group stage and qualify for the next round.’

On his own part in the ceremony, which involved drawing which letter group each team went into, Cech had this to say:‘It is a new experience for me and I enjoy that because it is something I have never done before and it is an honour as well to be a part of the draw, and hopefully the football fans will have some interesting games to see.’