Napoli lost to bilbao...
The elite of European football will gather in Monte Carlo on Thursday evening to discover their opponents in the Champions League group stage.
The group stage consists of eight groups of four teams, so there will be 32 participants in all.
22 of those automatically qualified for the group stage by finishing high in their respective leagues last season. These teams are: Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Schalke 04, Juventus, Roma, Benfica, Sporting Lisbon, Paris Saint-Germain, Monaco, Shakhtar Donetsk, CSKA Moscow, Ajax, Galatasaray, Anderlecht, Olympiacos and Basel.
These clubs are joined by 10 more who have advanced from the play-off round. Those who have made their way via this route are: Maribor, APOEL, BATE Borisov, Zenit Saint Petersburg, Porto, Arsenal, Athletic Bilbao, Bayer Leverkusen, Malmo and Ludogorets.
Manchester City
Being relatively new to the Champions League stage, City are in pot two and so they will face one of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Atletico Madrid or Porto in their group. A nightmare draw for Manuel Pellegrini's men would be, say, Real Madrid, Galatasaray and Roma. The ideal draw would see them against Porto, CSKA Moscow and APOEL.
Group Stage : Draw
Thursday, 28th August @ 9:15pm IST
Live on Ten Action & uefa.com (online)
Last edited by Giggs; 08-28-2014 at 09:37 PM.
UEFA Champions League group stage draw pots
Pot 1
Real Madrid CF
FC Barcelona
FC Bayern München
Chelsea FC
SL Benfica
Club Atlético de Madrid
Arsenal FC
FC Porto
Pot 2
FC Schalke 04
Borussia Dortmund
Juventus
Paris Saint-Germain FC
FC Shakhtar Donetsk
FC Basel 1893
FC Zenit
Manchester City FC
Pot 3
Bayer 04 Leverkusen
Olympiacos FC
PFC CSKA Moskva
AFC Ajax
Liverpool FC
Sporting Clube de Portugal
Galatasaray AŞ
Athletic Bilbao
Pot 4
RSC Anderlecht
AS Roma
APOEL FC
FC BATE Borisov
PFC Ludogorets Razgrad
NK Maribor
AS Monaco FC
Malmö FF
UCL GRP STAGE DRAW
A: Atletico, Juventus, Olympiakos, Malmo
B: Real Madrid, FC Basel, Liverpool, Ludogorets
C: Benfica, Zenit, Bayer Leverkusen, AS Monaco
D: Arsenal, Dortmund, Galatasaray, Anderletch
E: Bayern, Manchester City, CSKA Moscow, AS ROMA
F: Barcelona, PSG, Ajax, Apoel
G: Chelsea, Schalke, Sporting Lisbon, Maribor
H: Porto, Shaktar, Bilbao, Bate Borisov
BEL20VED
Liverpool will be delighted with this draw...real good chance of getting into the knockouts...
‘away – beyond the worldly rules of right and wrong, there is a field; I will meet you there’
Mou cant stop laughing after the draw.... haahhahahahaa
The 2014/15 UCL group stage schedule
BEL20VED