Great to be able to create this thread. This Thursday August 26th is the draw for the Group Stage of the Champions League. For the first time ever, Sporting CP is in Pot 1 after winning the league title. Of course, with last year providing a lot of surprises, Pot 2 is actually insanely strong and we'll likely get a big team anyways. Maybe a return for Bruno Fernandes with Man United? Or Messi/Mbappe/Neymar with PSG? Some remaining Play off matches will be resolved this Tuesday/Wednesday (including our rivals Benfica) but so far the Pots look like this: Pot 1 Chelsea Villareal Atletico Madrid Manchester City Bayern Munich Inter Milan Lille Sporting CP Pot 2 Real Madrid Barcelona Juventus Manchester United Paris Saint-Germain Liverpool Sevilla Borussia Dortmund Pot 3 FC Porto Ajax RB Leipzig Atalanta Zenit Pot 3 or 4 Besiktas Dynamo Kiev Pot 4 Club Brugge AC Milan Wolfsburg We'll get the full picture on Wednesday ahead of the draw.
With the final playoff matches played today, here's what the pots look like finally - draw is tomorrow at 12 pm EST Pot 1 Chelsea Villareal Atletico Madrid Manchester City Bayern Munich Inter Milan Lille Sporting CP Pot 2 Real Madrid Barcelona Juventus Manchester United Paris Saint-Germain Liverpool Sevilla Borussia Dortmund Pot 3 FC Porto Ajax RB Leipzig Atalanta Zenit Shakthar Donetsk RB Salzburg Benfica Pot 4 Club Brugge AC Milan Wolfsburg Besiktas Dynamo Kiev Young Boys Wolfsburg Sheriff Tiraspol Who do you want to draw?
its not that bad. The worst case scenario is sporting psg Ajax ac milan…..which is tough but is still doable to qualify. benfica and Porto on the other hand can get something devastating like bayern psg ac Milan. /deleteclub. Knowing Portos luck, they will get an even easier group than sporting despite being lot three.
We get Dortmund from Pot 2, not bad! Will still be tough, but considering the other teams there, can't complain.
We get Ajax - they're always a good team, but personally I like Ajax and the way they develop their talent like us, so should be a good match. Sporting Borussia Dortmund Ajax
Wish we'd gotten Man Utd instead of Dortmund (just so i could go see it and Bruno facing Sporting again)
No reason why we can’t finish top two. I think only Dortmund is clearly better than us and even then, winning against them especially at home is within our capabilities. saudacoes leoninas
We know how well we’ve done in the league and how great Amorim has been setting us up. It’ll be interesting to see how we get on against the better teams like Dortmund and Ajax I just hope if we do well we don’t offer a platform for clubs to start sniffing around Amorim!
This group will still be tough even though everyone says that we lucked out. Ajax and Besiktas are very similar to us IMO. And I'd even say Ajax has the edge on us right now based on recent European experience. I think defensively this team is really solid. At the back we have a ton of experience including CL experience. I'm more worried about our offense, we really rely on Pote so hopefully he stays in good scoring form. Looking at each team: Dortmund - Our defense will be tested with the beast that is Haaland, they also have a lot of young really talented players. I think Ajax will manage to take points from Dortmund so hopefully we perform well especially at home. We narrow lost to them by 1 goal last time around in both games. Ajax - probably who we will fight with for 2nd, they've had a shaky start to their season but I wouldn't count them out. Apparently history is in our favour as we have a positive record against both them and Besiktas. Neres and Antony will be tricky wingers and Gravenberch is really good. Besiktas has the Canadian duo of Hutchinson and Larin, also they got Batshuayi, and of course Rosier who flopped with us. But it would be disappointing if we finished behind them, even though their away fans are crazy.