Club secretary David Miles said: “This is our 19th consecutive season in the Champions League and of those 19 years we have qualified from the group stage 16 times”.
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Borussia Moenchengladbach and Celtic join City and Barca in a fiercely competitive group, but it is the return of Guardiola – and to a lesser extend Begiristain and boardroom colleague Ferran Soriano – to Catalonia that offers the most mouth-watering prospect.
The Bundesliga giants face a hard Group F against defending champions Madrid, who won the competition for an 11th time last season, while Sporting CP and Legia Warsaw complete the four-team line-up.
Leicester produced one of the great sporting shocks to win last season’s Premier League title and qualify for the Champions League for the first time.
“These are three very established European football clubs and strong teams”.
“We have good Champions League pedigree but of course recently we have met with Barcelona and Bayern Munich and unfortunately failed at that hurdle. We look forward to facing the defending champions”.
Bayern, now under triple Champions League victor Carlo Ancelotti, will have a quick chance to avenge last season’s semifinal defeat by Atletico Madrid after it was paired together in Group D along with PSV Eindhoven and group stage debutants Rostov.
Their toughest test is likely to come against Russian champions CSKA Moscow, the 2005 Uefa Cup winners.
For the third season running Serie A has only two teams in the group stage.
The Hampden chief said: “There is still a lot to be worked through before we can comment fully on these changes, with UEFA stating that full details of the access list for both competitions will be finalised by the end of the year”.
Group A: Paris St-Germain (France), Arsenal (England), Basel (Switzerland), Ludogorets (Bulgaria).
Group B: Benfica (Portugal), Napoli (Italy), Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine), Besiktas (Turkey).
Group C: Barcelona (Spain), Manchester City (England), Borussia Monchengladbach (Germany), Celtic (Scotland).
Holder and 11-time victor Real Madrid will have a tough pair of matches against Borussia Dortmund in Group F although both teams should progress from a section that also contains Sporting Lisbon and Legia Warsaw.
Tottenham and Arsenal will have few complaints about their draws, while champions Leicester could hardly have asked for a kinder group on their debut in European football’s top club competition.
Juventus will take on three-time reigning European League champions Sevilla as well as Lyon and Dinamo Zagreb in Group H.
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GROUP D: Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, PSV Eindhoven, Rostov.
