Tottenham have missed out on a top seeding for Tuesday's Uefa Cup group stage draw in Switzerland.
Spurs were rated ninth in Uefa's seedings and join Bolton in pool two, while Everton are in the third tier with Aberdeen in the bottom eight.
This means they could face a top seed such as Villarreal or Bayern Munich.
The 40 clubs will be drawn into eight groups of five, with each playing two home and away matches. Clubs from the same country cannot be paired together.
The top three in each of the groups will join the teams finishing third in the Champions League groups for the knockout rounds, which start with 32 sides.
Eric Gerets was naturally delighted with his Marseille side's historic 1-0 win at Liverpool, judging it a fine way for any manager to begin a new job.
That said, he refused to go so far as to say that it was a tremendous performance, pointing out that this side still had plenty of work to do.
"My players wrote history this evening," he beamed after the Wednesday night Champions League match.
"I was on the touchline, unfortunately - any former player would much rather have been out on the pitch! But I'm happy, and rather proud of my players. Sure, they made some technical errors, but tactically they were brilliant: with that, I'm extremely pleased."
Gerets, who has been out of work since parting company with Galatasaray in May, continued, "Obviously, as manager, I'm very pleased that my players did so well, and looked so good on the pitch. They won an important match against one of Europe's top sides. The players deserve high praise for that. From the bench, I tried to point out many of their small errors, and they began to respond: when I shout, it's not to hurt them, but to help them. I hope that we'll continue in that vein."
Mathieu Valbuena, a late inclusion to the side, proved an inspired choice as he netted the winning goal not long before full time. Gerets couldn't resist a bit of 'told you so' regarding his decision to play the midfielder.
"I took the responsibility to play Valbuena in the team in that position, but I was unworried in doing so," he said. "He played a superb tactical match, just like the rest of the team."
With six points from six, Gerets has his eye on the knockout stage, thanking previous coach - the sacked Albert Emon - for the fine start in Turkey that propelled the side forward in Europe.
"I do hope that we can make the second stage, but it was Albert [Emon] who gave us three points at Besiktas. For that, I must thank him this evening," he smiled.
"And I thank the supporters, who endured 20 hours on the bus to be here this evening, with another 20 hour journey back still to come. The players are pleased for the supporters, too. I said to the lads before the match that the fans - some of whom don't have much money - spent 20 hours of their time coming here to see them play. Thus, they had to make them proud for the journey home. As for the fans, sometimes I felt that we were playing at home, not away."
Marseille won't return to the Velodrome just yet - domestically, they face Saint-Etienne away at the weekend as they look to get their disastrous domestic campaign back on track.
02 October 2007
Sebastian Larsson is a surprise inclusion in the Sweden squad for the Euro 2008 qualifiers later this month.
Lars Lagerback's side, who currently top Group F with 19 points and also have a game in hand, play Liechtenstein on 13th October before facing Northern Ireland four days later.
Larsson, 22, has earned a call-up for the games after regular Premier League appearances for Birmingham this season.
"He's one of the small number of young players that has managed to establish himself without returning home," Lagerback is quoted on Uefa.com.
Larsson is joined by fellow Premier League-based players Andreas Isaksson, Andreas Granqvist, Olof Mellberg, Freddie Ljungberg and Christian Wilhelmsson.
Internazionale striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic is selected in the 23-man squad despite being suspended for the game against Liechtenstein.
But Kennedy Bakircioglu and Max von Schleebrugge miss out through injury, although Andreas Johansson is included despite a knee problem.
Full squad:
Andreas Isaksson (Manchester City), Rami Shaaban (Fredrikstad); Matias Concha (VfL Bochum), Erik Edman (Rennes), Andreas Granqvist (Wigan), Petter Hansson (Rennes), Daniel Majstorovic (Basel), Olof Mellberg (Aston Villa), Mikael Nilsson (Panathinaikos); Niclas Alexandersson (IFK Gothenburg), Daniel Andersson (Malmo), Andreas Johansson (AaB Aalborg), Kim Kallstrom (Lyon), Sebastian Larsson (Birmingham), Tobias Linderoth (Galatasaray), Fredrik Ljungberg (West Ham), Anders Svensson (Elsborg), Christian Wilhelmsson (Bolton); Marcus Allback (FC Copenhagen), Johan Elmander (Toulouse), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter), Rade Prica (AaB Aalborg), Markus Rosenberg (Werder Bremen)
