Champions League Draw Pots Explained

Above are the four pots for what will comprise the Champions League group stage draw later this afternoon. They may be in Portuguese but it is all pretty self explanatory. The only team that may look unfamiliar is that of Basilela in Pot (Pote) 3 – that is actually Basle of Switzerland.

A big thanks to somosporto1893 on Twitter who compiled the graphic but now I will give you a quick run down of the pots themselves and what the English teams should be looking out for.

One question that keeps popping up is “Why are Spartak Moscow in Pot 1” that is because the holders are joined by the champions of the seven highest european co-efficients (not including the league of the holders) therefore with Russia ranked number 7, Spartak are in that pot as Russian Premier League winners.

That however has given us the nightmare scenario of Pot 2, which has to be said is the ‘Pot Of Death’ the 8 teams that are in will be breathing a sigh of relief, the 8 teams that are in Pot 3 will be nervously awaiting which European giant they will be paired up with.

For Tottenham and Liverpool they are going to have to grit their teeth and see what they are left with as to be honest there are no real easy draws for them, even looking at the ‘weaker’ teams in Pot 2 those being Sevilla and FC Porto they still have a huge European pedigree and will be no easy match.

Tottenham or Liverpool could get a group like this:

Real Madrid
PSG
Tottenham or Liverpool
Celtic

Talk about a group of death.  Obviously in regards to Pot 2, Liverpool or Tottenham cannot be paired with English clubs therefore they cannot be paired with Manchester United or Manchester City and Chelsea for the same reasons in Pot 1.

So if we strip out the other English clubs ahead of them, these are the teams they could face

Pot 1

Real Madrid
Bayern Munich
Juventus
Benfica
Monaco
Spartak Moscow
Shakhtar Donetsk

Pot 2

Barcelona
Atletico Madrid
PSG
Borussia Dortmund
Sevilla
FC Porto

Also you should not forget that you cannot have two teams from the same nation from anywhere else, therefore if they do draw Real Madrid then Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla then are not an option.

This would then mean that they would have had a 1 in 3 chance of also being paired with PSG, so if they can get paired with either Spartak Moscow or Shakhtar Donetsk it would then mean they have a 50% chance of being paired with a La Liga club in Pot 2.

For Chelsea, this their list of possibilities

Pot 2

Barcelona
Atletico Madrid
PSG
Borussia Dortmund
Sevilla
FC Porto

Pot 3

Napoli
Basle
Olympiacos
Anderlecht
Roma
Besiktas

Pot 4

Celtic
Feyenoord
Maribor
Leipzig
CSKA Moscow
Sporting Lisbon
Qarabag
APOEL

Obviously same rules apply in that they cannot meet two clubs for the same opposing nation

While for both Manchhester clubs the route is pretty much the same as above for Pots 3 and 4 while they can meet everyone bar Chelsea in Pot 1.

As for Celtic, it is pretty much an open draw for them bar the two clubs one nation rule, so their permutations will be decided depending on who is drawn out in the first two pots.

I think that concludes all the possible permutations, I could go into real deep detail but by the time the article would have gone live then the draw would have already taken place. I’ll be back with a full recap later on tonight.