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Champions League: Who we could face

Champions League

The draw for the group stage of this season's Uefa Champions League takes place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco at 4.45pm (UK time) on Thursday.

Having beaten Fenerbahce 5-0 on aggregate in their play-off tie, Arsenal will be seeded in Pot One alongside Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Porto and Benfica.

Manchester City will be in Pot Three, but teams from the same national association cannot face each other in the group stage.

Champions League pots

Champions League pots

 

Stay close to Arsenal.com for news and reaction from Thursday's draw plus fixture dates and ticket information.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DRAW DETAILS

  • The 32 clubs who feature in the draw are split into four pots of eight based on their Uefa coefficient scores. These are based on performance in European competitions over the last five years.
  • A total of eight groups of four teams will be drawn with one side from each seeding pot in each group. No side can be drawn against another from the same pot, nor can they play a team from their home country.
  • Where two sides from the same country have qualified, they will be paired to split their matches between Tuesday and Wednesday, so one club will always play at home on one day and the other will play away on the other day. In the case of countries with three representatives, only two teams have been paired in terms of their fixtures; in the case of countries with four representatives, two pairings have been made.
  • To ensure sides from the same country play on separate days, the eight groups will be distinguished by colour: Groups A-D will be red and Groups E-H blue. When a paired club is drawn, for example, into one of the red groups, the other paired club - once it has been drawn - will automatically be assigned to one of the four blue groups.
  • The order of home and away matches will be determined after the draw has taken place