The top three La Liga’s clubs qualified directly for the group stage of the Champions League, while fourth placed Valencia managed a 4-3 aggregate win over AS Monaco in the playoff round.
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The most-coveted prize in club football promises the world’s best players performing at arguably their highest level.
The four Premier League sides are among 32 teams entering this season’s elite European competition. A draw of Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Roma and Wolfsburg is a possibility. The start of the new season brings new names – Santi Mina from Celta Vigo, and Danilo Barbosa from Braga, while the biggest news of the transfer window is Nicolas Otamendi’s sale to Manchester City.
Top-seeded status now goes to the title holder and national champions of top-ranked leagues.
Spain also lead Uefa’s club coefficient rankings – the system used to decide which leagues get most qualifying spots for its competitions – by a considerable margin.
As a result, the Catalan club – who will hope to retain the trophy at the final at the San Siro next May – are joined by Chelsea, Bayern, Juventus, Benfica, Paris Saint-German, Zenit St Petersburg and PSV Eindhoven in the first pot.
Pot 3: Shakhtar Donetsk, Sevilla, Lyon, Dynamo Kiev, Olympiakos, CSKA Moscow, Galatasaray, Roma.
And because Barca won both the Champions League and the Spanish League, the champions of the Netherlands are included in pot 1 as well. Maccabi progressed to the group stage for the second time after an Eran Zahavi goal cancelled out Luca Zuffi’s opener.
Greek champion Olympiakos is in the draw despite its president, Vangelis Marinakis, being implicated in a criminal investigation of alleged match-fixing.
UEFA have changed the format slightly this season.
UEFA can also disqualify teams midseason if fixing allegations are proven.
Not at this stage, no. Teams from the same association cannot be put in the same group.
Tomorrow, a bunch of ping pong balls get dumped into four shiny silver bowls and then taken right back out again, and those balls will determine Arsenal’s Champions League group.
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Anyway, this season’s CL qualifiers finish today.
