Key events
Thanks, Michael and hello, everyone. How we feelin’ tonight?! The big bash is under way in Monaco, with an opera singer on stage in glittering attire to perform the entire Champions League anthem, in front of a montage of European Cup-winning moments.
I am simply the hype man, sent on early to warm up the crowd. Niall McVeigh will take the blog for the actual draw/main event. Enjoy!
Uefa are calling this the ‘League Phase Draw’, if you can decipher that.
These are the pots for the draw. It is obviously some sort of seeding system, composed according to the club coefficient rankings established at the beginning of the season and with the Champions League titleholder being the top seed in Pot One.
Pots
Pot One
1. Real Madrid (ESP)
2. Manchester City (ENG)
3. Bayern Munich (GER)
4. Paris Saint-Germain (FRA)
5. Liverpool (ENG)
6. Internazionale (ITA)
7. Borussia Dortmund (GER)
8. RB Leipzig (GER)
9. Barcelona (ESP)
Pot Two
10. Bayer Leverkusen (GER)
11. Atlético Madrid (ESP)
12. Atalanta (ITA)
13. Juventus (ITA)
14. Benfica (POR)
15. Arsenal (ENG)
16. Club Brugge KV (BEL)
17. Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR)
18. Milan (ITA)
Pot Three
19. Feyenoord (NED)
20. Sporting Lisbon (POR)
21. PSV Eindhoven (NED)
22. GNK Dinamo (CRO)
23. RB Salzburg (AUT)
24. Lille (FRA)
25. Red Star Belgrade (SRB)
26. Young Boys (SUI)
27. Celtic (SCO)
Pot Four
28. Slovan Bratislava (SVK)
29. Monaco (FRA)
30. Sparta Praha (CZE)
31. Aston Villa (ENG)
32. Bologna 1909 (ITA)
33. Girona (ESP)
34. Stuttgart (GER)
35. Sturm Graz (AUT)
36. Brest (FRA)
This is Uefa’s explanation to what the pots actually mean, and how the draw will take place.
Once the name of the team is displayed, the automated software randomly draws eight opponents for this team, two from each pot (1, 2, 3 and 4), including, for each opponent, whether they are played at home or away. The order of allocation of opponents starts with pot 1 (two opponents), followed by the other pots in descending order. The software draws the possible valid opponents from all pots respecting the above-mentioned draw conditions, and ensuring that a valid allocation is made, guaranteeing the full draw and match schedule in line with the competition calendar can be completed for all teams. This allocation by the software is made within a predefined time limit.
Once a valid allocation has been drawn by the software, the opponents and which matches are played at home or away will be revealed. The procedure is then repeated for all remaining teams of pot one.
Got it? Good.
Rather than a former champion fumbling around a bag of balls, or Rod Steward making faces at the cameras, this format of the draw does have some added jeapardy: cyber attack.
“We’re taking cybersecurity incredibly seriously,” said Dave Gill, the chief executive of AE Live. “Clearly this is a sensitive issue. I’m reluctant to go into details about what we’re doing but I can assure you we’ve taken all steps we can to make sure this is as safe and secure as possible.” Gill said his company was on the receiving end of attacks while working on the Qatar 2022 draw for Fifa after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. “We’ve experienced this,” he added. “We’ve been through risk assessments and put precautions in place.”
Preamble
Here we go again. The battle for Ol’ Big Ears starts again in earnest with this draw. Normally this would be for the group stage, but this is a new world. We’re just now sure if we like it (yet).
How will the new format work?
This is a high-stakes experiment from Uefa, implemented initially for the 2024-27 Champions League cycle. The old group stage has been replaced by a single 36-strong league table with each team playing eight matches against eight different opponents, four at home and four away. It is known as a “Swiss model” and will shake down into a top eight, who qualify directly to the knockout stage, with 16 sides contesting a playoff round. The teams finishing between 25th and 36th will be eliminated when the league phase concludes in January. The knockouts will look familiar, a round of 16 funnelling towards a May final, this time in Munich, and they will be bracketed so the clubs can plot their potential path.
How will the draw work?
A new “hybrid concept” will replace the old-fashioned method that was based purely on picking balls from bowls. Each team will be drawn out by hand before software designed by AE Live, a technology solutions provider that works with a range of major sports institutions, selects their eight opponents. No club can play another team from their own domestic league or play more than two games against sides from a particular country. Supporters with their fingers poised on Skyscanner can ease off: the fixture list, including the order in which matches are played, will not be published until Saturday.
The draw will take place at 5pm BST and is expected to last for around an hour! How exactly it will do that, I have no idea!