Champions League 2015 draw: Chelsea and Manchester United get it easy; Arsenal, City get hosed

For the most part, the Champions League group stage draw turned out just fine. Some groups are stronger than others, but most feature a top tier team and one or two second-tier teams. There’s no truly absurd group of death where one of the top eight or so teams in Europe is getting ousted. But there is Group H, in which even the winner will have a very hard time making the quarterfinals.

Zenit St. Petersburg, Valencia, Lyon and Gent are all perfectly respectable teams, but they’re all the types of sides who are usually in a tight scrap between second and third place. Instead of that, two of them will progress, with one getting a very favorable draw. All because UEFA decided the champions of Russia need to be a top seed.

Though Chelsea and FC Porto both got a bit screwed by the new Champions League seeding system -- both would have been in Pot 1 under the old rules -- the draw turned out OK for both of them. They won’t be thrilled at having to play each other, but they’re the favorites to go through as the top two sides in a pretty easy Group G.

Dynamo Kiev are a decent enough team, but certainly not as talented as Porto. Maccabi Tel-Aviv, meanwhile, are firmly in the “just happy to be here” camp.

There isn’t a more straightforward group in the UEFA Champions League than Group F. Anything but Bayern Munich finishing top and Arsenal second would be a massive surprise. But they’re probably going to play the matches anyway, and it’s possible we get a handful of very good ones. Plus, the battle between Olympiacos and Dinamo Zagreb for Europa League could be really close, if that’s your thing.

Bayern have retained their top talent, gotten Javi Martinez back from injury, and added a pair of instant stars in Douglas Costa and Arturo Vidal. There’s no reason to believe the Bavarians aren’t going to win the Bundesliga and make it to the Champions League semifinals yet again. But that won’t be good enough for Pep Guardiola, who will have set the goal of winning a European Cup before he departs Munich when he took the job. Between their ambitious tactics that leave holes in their defense and the injury problems Franck Ribery’s dealing with, it’s not clear that they have what it takes to topple Barcelona.

No one expects Barcelona to struggle to win their Champions League group, but they’ll face a serious test in at least four of their games this season. Bayer Leverkusen and AS Roma are no pushovers, and second place in Group E might be determined by which one of them manages to get points off the Blaugrana.

The fourth team in Group E is BATE Borisov, who are going to seriously struggle to get any points.

Want to blame the new Champions League draw format for this Group of Death? The only reason you can is because none of these teams would have been in Pot 1 under the old rules. The only reason this was possible is that Juventus won Serie A, putting them a pot higher than usual. So the toughest group in the competition doesn’t feature any of the “top eight” teams.

Still, it’s easy to picture the winner of this group making a run to the semifinal or better. Manchester City look much improved over last season, Sevilla were very deserving Europa League winners and Borussia Mönchengladbach, though probably the weakest side here, have a very good defensive manager.

Under the old Champions League draw system, Atlético Madrid would have been one of the teams in Pot 1. But because league champions get the top spots, they were forced down into Pot 2, and a likely candidate to end up in a group of death. Instead, they got lucky and they’re probably going to top Group C without too much of a problem.

The other knockout stage place will be contested between Benfica -- the Pot 1 team that got slotted into this group -- and Galatasaray. The Portuguese champions will be expected to get through, but they’re hardly a lock to progress. Gala’s made it to the knockout stages quite a few times.

Through the first three rounds of the UEFA Champions League group stage draw, it looked like Manchester United was going to get off extremely easy. “RIGGED,” screamed people who hate United and think UEFA wants this to happen to guarantee good TV ratings late in the competition.

And then Pot 4 was drawn and suddenly Group B got very interesting. Wolfsburg won’t have Kevin De Bruyne when they take on the Red Devils, but they’re still an excellent side, and they still have a few days left to re-invest part of the huge transfer fee they’re getting. United might be the best team in this group, but it’s not going to be easy.

Through the first two rounds of the Champions League draw, it looked like Group A was setting up to be the most difficult in the competition. But the two big sides got fortunate when teams from Pots 3 and 4 were allocated, making this group pretty straightforward. There will be a battle for the top spot, but it would be very surprising if Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain didn’t hold off the other two teams -- Shakhtar Donetsk and Malmo -- to make the knockout stage of the competition.

It doesn’t look like Rafa Benitez has Real Madrid firing on all cylinders yet, and they’re yet to capture David De Gea, but Los Merengues are still the best team in this group. Keylor Navas is still an upgrade over Iker Casillas in goal, and Cristiano Ronaldo is still one of the best players in the world. A day might come when Paris Saint-Germain is on par with the only team to win 10 European Cups, but they’re probably not quite there yet.

The UEFA Champions League group stage draw is one of the biggest events on the soccer calendar each year and could determine the fate (and realistic goals) for Europe’s top clubs.

The likes of Bayern Munich and Barcelona will expect to top their group no matter how brutal their draw is, but most teams are crossing their fingers that they don’t get thrown into one of the hardest groups. Some smaller teams will have to settle for setting their sights on third place and Europa League qualification.

The UEFA Champions League group stage draw takes place on Thursday, which is a bit of a departure from the normal procedure. Usually, the Champions League and Europa League draws are done together early on Friday. Instead, UEFA has made it into a prime time (in Europe) Thursday night event this time around.

No matter where you are in the world, you can catch the draw on UEFA.com for free starting at around 11:30 p.m. ET, 5:30 p.m. local time. If you don’t see the stream pop up right away when you visit, don’t panic. It’ll be up and running before the ceremonies get underway.