UEFA Champions League
UCL Group Stage Draw: Everything You Need To Know
Here is everything you need to know about the UCL Group Stage Draw set to take place in Monaco on Thursday, August 29th at 12:00 pm ET.
The draw will consist of 32 teams who will be divided into 8 groups. However, only 29 have been confirmed at the time of writing. Currently, the following teams have spots secured in the draw:
Spain: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Valencia. England: Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham and Chelsea. Italy: Juventus, Napoli, Inter Milan, Atalanta. Germany: Bayern Munich, Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen, RB Leipzig. France: PSG, Lyon, Lille. Portugal: Benfica. Russia: Zenit, Lokomotiv Moscow. Ukraine: Shakhtar Donetsk. Belgium: Genk. Turkey: Galatasaray. Austria: RB Salzburg. Greece: Olympiakos. Serbia: Red Star Belgrade. Croatia: Dinamo Zagreb
The remaining teams will be known by the results of the following matches set to take place on Wednesday (Aug 28th) at 3 pm ET.
- Slavia Prague vs. CRF Cluj (first leg: 1-0)
- Ajax vs. APOEL (first leg: 0-0)
- Club Brugge vs. LASK (first leg: 1-0)
As a result, only the teams in Pot 1 are known so far. Namely, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, PSG and Zenit.
This pot consists of the reigning Champions League and Europa League winners alongside the champions of the European leagues with the best coefficients. The remaining pots will also be made up according to their coefficient ranking.
Rules of Draw
The rules for the draw regarding clubs from the same country apply as usual. For example, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF will not meet in the group stage since both hail from Spain.
Also, owing to tensions between the two nations, UEFA will continue to disallow clubs from Russia and the Ukraine to be drawn together in the same group.
Other Items of Interest
Correspondingly, the UCL Group Stage Draw also establishes the groups for the UEFA Champions League path of the UEFA Youth League.
In addition to the draw, the awards for last season will be given out at the ceremony and are as follows:
UEFA Men’s Player of the Year
UEFA Women’s Player of the Year
Goalkeeper of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Defender of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Midfielder of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Forward of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Lastly, the dates for group competition are:
17/18 September: group stage, matchday one
1/2 October: group stage, matchday two
22/23 October: group stage, matchday three
5/6 November: group stage, matchday four
26/27 November: group stage, matchday five
10/11 December: group stage, matchday six
The UCL group stage draw is available for viewing live on UEFA’s website, which can be found here. Additionally, it is available for viewing on FuboTV.
Written by Chris Cartwright
Follow Chris and TSJ: Soccer on Twitter!
Photo credit to petr.pavel via Flickr
Follow TSJ on YouTube and Twitter
