It’s back! The qualifiers are done, the playoffs have been played off, and 32 teams that will compete for the big-eared trophy have been determined. Yes, the Champions League has returned for another season, and this afternoon — 11:45 ET, 4:45 BST, 5:45 CET — we find out just who will play who in the group stages.
UEFA Champions League draw: Group stage set on Thursday
It’s back! And there are plenty of tantalising groups in prospect.
Alex Livesey
Most of the usual suspects are all here. Defending champions Real Madrid and Catalan rivals Barcelona, German trophy-hoovers Bayern Munich, hardy English perennials Arsenal and Chelsea, moneybags Paris Saint-Germain; all will be expecting to run deep into the competition. And a few familiar faces return: five-time winners Liverpool, last seen exiting in the group stage in 2010, along with AS Roma and Monaco.
Making their debuts this season are Swedish champions Malmö — hoping for a reunion with former youth player Zlatan Ibrahimovic — and Bulgarian champions Ludogorets Razgrad. The latter made it through the playoffs after winning a penalty shootout with an outfield player in goal. Central defender Cosmin Moti saved two penalties and wrote himself into football folklore. Let’s hope for some equally ridiculous brilliance in the competition proper.
Here are the four pots; one from makes up a group. To ensure variety, teams from the same country cannot be drawn in the same group as one another. Also, to ensure political smoothness, teams from Russia and Ukraine will not be drawn together. So no CSKA-Shakhtar games this year.
Pot 1:
Real Madrid (Spain), Barcelona (Spain), Bayern Munich (Germany), Chelsea (England), Benfica (Portugal), Atletico Madrid (Spain), Arsenal (England), Porto (Portugal)
Pot 2:
Schalke 04 (Germany), Borussia Dortmund (Germany), Juventus (Italy), Paris Saint-Germain (France), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), Basel (Switzerland), Zenit St Petersburg (Russia), Manchester City (England)
Pot 3:
Bayer Leverkusen (Germany), Olympiacos (Greece), CSKA Moscow (Russia), Ajax (Netherlands), Liverpool (England), Sporting CP (Portugal), Galatasaray (Turkey), Athletic Bilbao (Spain)
Pot 4:
Anderlecht (Belgium), Roma (Italy), APOEL (Cyprus), BATE Borisov (Belarus), Ludogorets (Bulgaria), Maribor (Slovenia), Monaco (France), Malmö FF (Sweden)
Plenty of potential for groups of death there, and perhaps the most mouthwatering looks something like Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Liverpool and Roma. Pot 1, as you might expect, is generally terrifying, though everybody below will be praying for Benfica. The teams to avoid in pot 2 are Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, while Liverpool, Athletic, and maybe Ajax and Bayer Leverkusen are the ones to watch out for in pot 3. Roma look by far the most dangerous member of pot 4.
The first group games take place on 16 and 17 September, and the groups all conclude on 9 and 10 December. Find out how to watch here. And to keep you in the mood, why not stand up, put your hand on your heart, and listen to this?
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