How does the Champions League group stage draw work? Format, rules, groups and pots

Later this evening we’ll find out how this season’s Champions League will stack up - who will be pitted against cup holders Manchester City? Or 14-time winners Real Madrid? If there will be a dreaded group of death this year and the fates of the clubs who are returning to the tournament after an absence such as Real Sociedad. Belgium’s sole representatives Antwerp will be making their debut in the competition - while they have been involved in other European tournaments over the years, they only appeared once in the old European Cup. losing home and away to the mighty Real Madrid in the First Round.

The cream of European football will be awaiting the outcome of today’s draw in Monaco. A total of 32 teams will be taking part in the group stage, arranged into eight groups of four.

The draw involves certain conditions to ensure that the top seeded teams don’t face each other until later in the competition, that clubs from the same country don’t face each other or play on the same day. Let’s have a look at the group stage draw procedure, bearing in mind that this will be the last edition of the Champions in its current format as a new, expanded version will be rolled out next year.

How does the Champions League group stage draw work?

The 32 teams are split into eight groups of four - A to H. Pot 1 will consist of the most recent Champions League and Europa League winners (Manchester City and Sevilla), as well as the current league champions from each of the top six nations as ranked by the UEFA country coefficient list: Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and the Netherlands.

The teams in Pots 2, 3, and 4 are based on UEFA’s club coefficient ranking, which is a mathematical formula to evaluate a specific club’s performance in domestic and continental competitions over the past five years. The coefficient of a club is calculated by adding the total number of points it obtains in a given season in the Champions League, Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League. A club’s five-season coefficient is the cumulative total of the previous five seasons’ coefficients, or 20% of its association’s five-season association coefficient, whichever is higher.

To ensure that paired clubs from the same country play on separate days, the eight groups will be distinguished by colour: Groups A to D will be red and Groups E to H will be blue. When a paired club is drawn, for example, in one of the red groups (A, B, C or D), the other paired club – once it has been drawn – will automatically be assigned to one of the four blue groups (E, F, G or H).

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The draw begins with a ball drawn from Pot 1. It is opened to reveal the name of the team and placed in the first available group in alphabetical order from A to H.

Once all of the teams from Pot 1 have been placed in a group from A to H, the draw moves to the teams in Pot 2. Teams from the same association cannot be drawn together in the group stage - eg. Inter Milan cannot be drawn into the same group as Napoli. Similarly, teams which are paired cannot play on the same day - that means that Barcelona and Real Madrid will play all of their group games on different days - if Barca play on a Tuesday, Madrid will play on a Wednesday and vice versa.

The draw process is repeated for Pots 3 and 4.

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When is the Champions League group stage draw?

The Champions League 2023/24 group stage draw will take place on Thursday 31 August 2023. The draw will be held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The event will get underway at 18:00 hours local time (CEST) - that’s 12 noon EDT or 9 a.m. PDT.