The draw for the Champions League group stage takes place today, with Europe’s premier club competition gradually settling into the new schedule forced upon it by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year’s edition actually started before the knockouts from the previous season’s neverending tournament had finished – the 2020 final took place in Lisbon an unpredecented 14 months after the first qualifying game was played on 25 June 2019.
Northern Irish side Linfield played the first game of the 2020-21 Champions League on 8 August, beating San Marino’s Tre Fiori 2-0, the same day that Barcelona and Bayern Munich both qualified for the 2019-20 version’s quarter-finals.
This year’s format will be adjusted due to the condensed schedule. However, we will see the return to the two-legged knockout stage – a format dispensed with in the Portuguese mini-tournament this summer – although qualifying matches were reduced to one-legged affairs.
Here’s how you can watch live as Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea discover which sides await them in this year’s group stages.
Group stage draw
The draw for the group stages of the Champions League, the point at which the competition proper begins, had to wait until those qualifying stages and play-offs had been completed.
It will take place in Athens, the new host for the 2021 final, on Thursday 1 October 2020 at 4pm UK time, just under three weeks before the matches are due to get underway.
Fans in the UK will be able to watch coverage of the draw live from 3.45pm on BT Sport 1 on TV, online or via the app.
Champions League group stage fixture dates
In order the squeeze the entire group stage in before Christmas, the gameweeks will be coming thick and fast from last October to the start of December:
- Matchday 1: 20-21 October
- Matchday 2: 27-28 October
- Matchday 3: 3-4 November
- Matchday 4: 24-25 November
- Matchday 5: 1-2 December
- Matchday 6: 8-9 December
Full pots list
Each group will receive one team from each pot, meaning for example that Premier League champions Liverpool cannot be drawn alongside Bayern Munich, or Manchester City cannot be drawn with Barcelona. Teams also cannot be drawn against other teams from their home country.
Pot 1
- Bayern Munich
- Juventus
- Liverpool
- Porto
- PSG
- Real Madrid
- Sevilla
- Zenit St Petersburg
Pot 2
- Barcelona
- Atletico Madrid
- Manchester City
- Manchester United
- Borussia Dortmund
- Shakhtar Donetsk
- Chelsea
- Ajax
Pot 3
- Dynamo Kiev
- Red Bull Salzburg
- RB Leipzig
- Inter Milan
- Olympiakos
- Lazio
- Krasnodar
- Atalanta
Pot 4
- Lokomotiv Moscow
- Marseille
- Club Brugge
- Borussia Monchengladbach
- Istanbul Besaksehir
- Midtjylland
- Rennes
- Ferencvaros
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2HN6wK9
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