The move will be seen as a manner of appeasing the continent’s biggest clubs, especially as UEFA have also revealed that financial distribution to clubs will be “increased significantly” for the Champions League and Europa League and that “historical success in the competition will also be acknowledged in coefficient calculation”.
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Group G: Leicester City (England), Porto (Portugal), Club Brugge (Belgium), FC Copenhagen (Denmark).
Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal will be favourites to progress but Basel boasts a fearsome record against English clubs in European competition.
“Are Celtic going to win the Champions League? No”.
“We were in the semi-final last season and we want to be there again”.
North London rivals Tottenham, returning to the Champions League for the first time since the 2010-11 season, will play CSKA Moscow, Bayer Leverkusen and Monaco in Group E. “For this reason, we must fight for everything”.
City have been drawn in Group C alongside Barca, Borussia Moenchengladbach and Celtic, with Guardiola set to return to the club where he began his career and managed with distinction for four seasons.
Whereas, the defending champions Real Madrid have a tricky group, with old foes Borussia Dortmund likely to challenge them for top spot.
Celtic’s Scott Sinclair is looking forward to taking centre stage in a Champions League game at the Etihad Stadium after being drawn against Manchester City.
Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, AC Milan and Inter Milan – all Champions League winners in the past 12 seasons – were missing from Thursday’s draw.
Group D: Bayern Munich (Germany), Atletico Madrid (Spain), PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands), Rostov (Russia).
Celtic travel to Barcelona in their Champions League opener on September 13 and welcome Manchester City to Glasgow in their first home match in the competition on September 28.
“It is obviously a hard group but it always is in the Champions League”. It’s going to be hard, but I think it’s great for the fans.
Theodoridis said it was an achievement just to keep any places for teams from the smaller leagues who struggle to compete on level terms with the elite clubs.
Currently, the top three teams from the top three leagues go straight into the Champions League.
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Juventus and Sevilla face each other in the group stages for the second successive season. The Turin side lost after extra time in the second leg in Germany.
