All is set for the Champions League draw which takes places in Monaco this afternoon (Thursday).
There are 32 teams for the draw and they have been divided into four pots based on the Uefa coefficients, which are in turn decided by a mixture of the team’s own performance in Europe over the past five seasons, as well as the strength of their country’s league.
The group stage comprises eight pools of four teams: consequently, a team from each pot is drawn and placed into one of the eight groups available.
This is done by pot and not “one at a time”: that is to say, all the teams from pot one will be placed into a group, and then pot two, and so on down to the fourth and final pot.
There are some restrictions, though. Teams from the same national association cannot be drawn together, and even prior to that there will be two ‘sets’ of groups decided for the purpose of television rights.
For example, the four teams from Spain cannot all be drawn in the same set.
Highest ranked teams are placed in pot 1 which comprises holders Real Madrid, fellow Spanish sides Barcelona and Atletico Madrid , Arsenal, the Portuguese pair of Benfica and Porto as well as Bayern Munich.
Pot 2 comprise Manchester City (Pot 2), Zenit St Petersburg, managed by Andre Villas-Boas ,Schalke , Basel , Juventus and Borussia Dortmund, runners-up in 2013.
Pot 3 we have Bayer Leverkusen , Olympiacos , Liverpool , Galatasaray , Sporting Lisbon , Atletic Bilbao , and Ajax Amsterdam. Finally in Pot 4 we have Anderlecht , Roma , APOEL , BATE Borisov , Ludogorets Razgrad , Maibor , Monaco and Malmo.
AUTHOR : PAUL OJENGE