... or possibly "The Road to Budapest" if there's another drop to the Europa League. The draw for the Group Stage of the UEFA Champions League will take place on Thursday 25 August. 26 clubs have secured their place for the draw. The remaining 6 clubs will be known by Wednesday of next week. Here are how the pots for the draw look. Clubs in red are involved in the Playoff Round the next two weeks. POT 1 Real Madrid Eintracht Frankfurt Manchester City AC Milan Bayern Munich Paris Saint-Germain FC Porto Ajax POT 2 Liverpool Chelsea FC Barcelona Juventus Atlético Madrid Sevilla RB Leipzig Tottenham Hotspur POT 3 Borussia Dortmund Red Bull Salzburg Shakhtar Donetsk Internazionale Napoli Benfica Sporting CP Bayer Leverkusen POT 3 or 4 Glasgow Rangers Dinamo Zagreb Red Star Belgrade Olympique Marseille NOTE: O.Marseille and D.Kiev have the same club coeffiecient score from the last 5 seasons (44.000). Unsure how UEFA would separate the two if every 'red' club above them all fail to win their Playoff Round ties but I'm assuming Marseille would get the bump up into Pot 3 based on last season's scores for both clubs. POT 4 Dinamo Kyiv FC København Club Brugge Celtic PSV Eindhoven Viktoria Plzen Qarabag FK Bodø/Glimt Maccabi Haifa Trabzonspor
Benfica qualified so first 3 pots are set, pot 4 will be all set after tomorrow's games. So far we know it includes Marseille, Brugge, Celtic, and today's other winners: Maccabi Haifa & Victoria Plzen. Tomorrow sees 3 very open return legs: Dinamo Zagreb 0-1 Bodo Glimt PSV Eindhoven 2-2 Rangers Trabzonspor 1-2 FC Copenhagen
Clubs in red play their 2nd leg playoff leg on Wednesday. POT 1 Real Madrid Eintracht Frankfurt Manchester City AC Milan Bayern Munich Paris Saint-Germain FC Porto Ajax POT 2 Liverpool Chelsea FC Barcelona Juventus Atlético Madrid Sevilla RB Leipzig Tottenham Hotspur POT 3 Borussia Dortmund Red Bull Salzburg Shakhtar Donetsk Internazionale Napoli Benfica Sporting CP Bayer Leverkusen POT 4 Glasgow Rangers Dinamo Zagreb Olympique Marseille FC København Club Brugge Celtic PSV Eindhoven Viktoria Plzen Bodø/Glimt Maccabi Haifa Trabzonspor
The teams in the last 2 pots look to be pretty even, relatively speaking. Meaning all the teams in pot 4 seem to be around the same level, likewise for the teams in pot 3. Maybe Shahktar and Salzburg(?) a bit weaker than the rest in pot 3. But often there is at least one big club that finds themselves in those pots (last year Milan was in pot 4). So, what the draw really comes down to is who we get in pot 1. Do we want a top team like PSG or City? It could boost the team's confidence.
I'd be OK with anyone in Pot 1, even PSG or Citeh. Getting grouped with Inter from Pot 3 would complicate things.
Conspiracists out there are convinced we'll draw PSG for the ratings explosion of seeing Messi play vs. his former team...
They always find something 'convincing'. Frankfurt = rematch of last season Man City = Bernardo, Pep Milan = Kessie Bayern = Lewandowski PSG = Messi, Neymar Ajax = Frenkie Porto = ??? (think hard!)
Benfica have steamrolled over teams so far this season though. Inter have been the exact opposite in CL the past two seasons. You could pretty much say the same about all Italian teams.
The pots are set. POT 1 Real Madrid Eintracht Frankfurt Manchester City AC Milan Bayern Munich Paris Saint-Germain FC Porto Ajax POT 2 Liverpool Chelsea FC Barcelona Juventus Atlético Madrid Sevilla RB Leipzig Tottenham Hotspur POT 3 Borussia Dortmund Red Bull Salzburg Shakhtar Donetsk Internazionale Napoli Benfica Sporting CP Bayer Leverkusen POT 4 Glasgow Rangers Dinamo Zagreb Olympique Marseille FC København Club Brugge Celtic Viktoria Plzen Maccabi Haifa
I know @Gilmango usually tracks this, but Barca are currently at about +1400 to win the CL this season. Let's see what impact this draw has. Though one wouldn't expect the group stage draw to impact the odds of the top 7 or 8 favorites too much.
Damn! 👀 for Manchester United in todays Uefa champions league draw 👀 pic.twitter.com/r7IQ7MV64a #UCL #UCLdraw— supermane10 (@supermanelfc) August 25, 2022
Yes, I gathered the pre-draw odds for the top 21 teams to win it all, sadly 538 is waiting until after the draw to post their own computer model of the odds to win it all (their model also shows % odds to advance from group stage, make final 8, 4, 2) so I will just put the club's overall global 538 ranking after their odds. ManCity - shortest odds at 2.75 or 275 or 11/4 (all same) and #2 in 538 PSG - 6 & #3 Liverpool - 6 & #4 Bayern 7 & #1 Real M 12.5 #5 Barca 14 #6 Tottenham 20 #10 Chelsea 21 #8 Inter 43 #9 Atletico 50 #12 Juve 50 #46 Milan 94 #17 BVB 94 #18 RBLeipzig 129 #14 Ajax 139 #7 Porto 269 #13 Napoli 289 #70 Bayer 289 #23 Sevilla 289 #38 Benfica 293 #21 Marseille 299 #53 Top 538 ranked teams not in CL draw are Arsenal #11, Villarreal #16, and Brighton #22 - may have missed some others, here's the source: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/global-club-rankings/ and odds are from odds aggregator Oddschecker's UK betting portal (the odds are expressed differently if you sign in as US for instance): https://www.oddschecker.com/football/champions-league/winner
Looks like Shakhtar Donetsk, Internazionale, Napoli are the only teams that can go in Barca's group. Shakhtar.... Inter
Now who gets Inter, BVB, Benfica... Pot 2 summary A: Ajax, Liverpool B: Porto, Atletico Madrid C: Bayern Munich, Barcelona D: Eintracht Frankfurt, Tottenham Hotspur E: AC Milan, Chelsea F: Real Madrid, RB Leipzig G: Manchester City, Sevilla H: Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus