CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DRAW: All you need to know, including how to follow it live as Liverpool, Manchester City, Man United and Chelsea discover their opponents on the road to Istanbul
We’re just three weeks away from the return of the Champions League and fans of Liverpool, Man City, Manchester United and Chelsea are about to find out which teams they will be facing when football’s elite club competition kicks off across the continent.
It wasn’t that long ago that Bayern Munich beat Paris Saint-Germain to lift the trophy in Lisbon after the season stretched deep into summer following the Covid-19 shutdown. Those two will join Liverpool, and the likes of Real Madrid and Juventus in pot 1 for Thursday’s draw in Nyon.
Sportsmail has provided all you need to know ahead of the draw, including how to follow it, which teams can still book a place in the money-spinning competition and all the key dates on the road to the 2021 final in Istanbul.
Bayern Munich defeated PSG in the Champions League final to be crowned champions
When is the Champions League draw?
The draw for the group stage of the 2020-21 Champions League will take place on Thursday, October 1 with the ceremony starting at 4pm (BST).
The Europa League draw will take place on Friday, October 2.
How to watch the group-stage draw?
You can follow Sportsmail’s live blog on Thursday while the ceremony will be on a live stream on the UEFA website .
UK viewers can also watch the draw live on BT Sport 1, with coverage starting at 3:45pm and finishing 6pm.
Where is the draw taking place?
The draw will take place in Nyon, Switzerland behind closed doors having originally been set to take place in Greece but moved due to the coronavirus pandemic.
How does the draw work?
Thirty-two clubs will participate in the group stage of the Champions League with 26 automatically qualifying and the other six via the play-offs.
The teams will be drawn into eight groups of four teams each but for the purpose of the draw they’ll be divided into four pots of eight.
No team can play a club from the same country in the group stage.
Champions League pots
Pot 1: Bayern Munich (Germany), Juventus (Italy), Liverpool (England), Paris Saint-Germain (France), Porto (Portugal), Real Madrid (Spain), Sevilla (Spain), Zenit St Petersburg (Russia)
Pot 2: Ajax (Netherlands), Atletico Madrid (Spain), Barcelona (Spain), Borussia Dortmund (Germany), Chelsea (England), Manchester City (England), Man United (England), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
Pot 3: Atalanta (Italy), Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine), Internazionale (Italy), Krasnodar (Russia), Lazio (Italy), Olympiacos (Greece), RB Leipzig (Germany), RB Salzburg (Austria)
Pot 4: Borussia Monchengladbach (Germany), Club Brugge (Belgium), Ferencvaros (Hungary), Istanbul Basaksehir (Turkey), Lokomotiv Moscow (Russia), Marseille (France), Midtjylland (Denmark), Rennes (France)
Champions League key dates
Group stage
- October 20/21: Matchday 1
- October 27/28: Matchday 2
- November 3/4: Matchday 3
- November 24/25: Matchday 4
- December 1/2: Matchday 5
- December 8/9: Matchday 6
Round of 16
- February 16/17 and 23/24: First legs
- March 9/10 and 16/17: Second legs
Quarter-finals
- April 6/7: First legs
- April 13/14: Second legs
Semi-finals
- April 27/28: First legs
- May 4/5: Second legs
Final
- May 29: Ataturk Stadium, Istanbul
