Champions League draw: Details of the group stage draw

Thursday 31 August 2023 by Jonathan Victoria Features

The start of the biggest club competition in the world.

Champions League draw: Details of the group stage draw

Today marks the proper official beginning of the new Champions League campaign, with the draw tonight setting the groups for the group stage.

The qualification stages are all complete, and now the 32 teams will find out who they will be facing in the first round.

Check out all the details for the upcoming Champions League draw, including all the teams involved, the pots, and how it will work.

Champions League draw: Teams involved

As always, the first round of the competition will consist of 32 teams. With the draw, those 32 teams will be split up into eight lots of four, making up the groups for the group stage.

The 32 teams are taken from 15 countries, with some countries having more representation than others due to their standings in the UEFA coefficient rankings.

However, Spain is the best-represented team this year due to Sevilla winning yet another Europa League title last year, which gained them an automatic place for the Champions League this year. Spain now has five teams in the Champions League this year.

Here is the full list of teams in the Champions League this year:

Manchester City (England)
Arsenal (England)
Manchester United (England)
Newcastle United (England)
Real Madrid (Spain)
Barcelona (Spain)
Sevilla (Spain)
Atletico Madrid (Spain)
Real Sociedad (Spain)
Bayern Munich (Germany)
Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
RB Leipzig (Germany)
Union Berlin (Germany)
Inter Milan (Italy)
AC Milan (Italy)
Napoli (Italy)
Lazio (Italy)
Benfica (Portugal)
Porto (Portugal)
Braga (Portugal)
Feyenoord (Netherlands)
PSV (Netherlands)
Paris Saint-Germain (France)
RC Lens (France)
RB Salzburg (Austria)
Red Star Belgrade/ Crvena Azezda (Serbia)
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
Antwerp (Belgium)
BSC Young Boys (Switzerland)
Galatasaray (Turkey)
Copenhagen (Denmark)
Celtic (Scotland)

Champions League draw: Pots

Each team will be divided into four pots with eight teams in each to allow for a fairer division into the groups. The pots are determined essentially by the strength of each team.

Pot 1 is reserved for the champions - that’s the reigning Champions League winners, the reigning Europa League winners who gained qualification through their win, then the winners of the top six leagues in Europe according to the coefficient rankings (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, France, and Portugal, who gets in because Man City won the Champions League and the English league title).

After that, Pots 2-4 are built based on UEFA’s five-year coefficient score. This means that teams such as Newcastle and Lens will be in Pot 4 due to not being ranked highly in the rankings as this is their first European campaign for 11 seasons.

Here are the full pots:

Pot 1

Manchester City
Sevilla
Barcelona
Napoli
Bayern Munich
Paris Saint-Germain
Benfica
Feyenoord

Pot 2

Real Madrid
Arsenal
Manchester United
Atletico Madrid
Porto
Borussia Dortmund
RB Leipzig
Inter Milan

Pot 3

AC Milan
Lazio
Braga
PSV
Red Star Belgrade/ Crvena Azezda
Shakhtar Donetsk
RB Salzburg
Copenhagen

Pot 4

Newcastle United
BSC Young Boys
Antwerp
Galatasaray
Real Sociedad
Union Berlin
RC Lens
Celtic

Champions League draw: How it works

The draw will work fairly simply once split up into the pots. There are some basic rules, with the most known one being that two teams from the same country cannot be placed into the same group.

The draw will be conducted by the pots - it will start with the eight teams from Pot 1, who will be put into groups A-H.

Once each team from Pot 1 is drawn into a group, Pot 2 will be next, putting each team from there into one of the groups containing a team from Pot 1.

That process is then repeated for Pots 3 and 4 until all teams are drawn and the groups are filled.

This will be the final year that the Champions League will have a draw for the group stage. After this year's tournament, the competition will be expanding to 36 teams, and instead of a standard group stage, there will be a league phase.

Champions League draw: Venue and time

The Champions League group stage draw will take place in the Principality of Monaco at the Grimaldi Forum.

The draw will take place from 5pm BST (6pm CEST).

Champions League group stage dates

The Champions League group stage will begin on 19th September and will end on 13th December. There are six matchdays in total, with each team playing their three group opponents twice - once at home and once away.

Here is the full list of dates:

Matchday 1 – 19th & 20th September 2023
Matchday 2 – 3rd & 4th October 2023
Matchday 3 – 24th & 25th October 2023
Matchday 4 – 7th & 8th November 2023
Matchday 5 – 28th & 29th November 2023
Matchday 6 – 12th & 13th December 2023

How to watch the Champions League

The Champions League is exclusive to TNT Sports, previously known as BT Sport. To watch all matches this season, you’ll need a valid TNT Sport subscription.

You can get your subscription sorted now by purchasing a BT package that includes TNT Sports.