UCL pots – Barcelona vs Man City? Chelsea to clash with Real Madrid again?

The draw for the 2022/23 Champions League group stage will be held this Thursday, August 25, with 32 teams drawn into eight groups of four.

The pots for the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League draw have been defined in the absence of the last three qualifiers of the playoff round of the competition.

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Benfica, Maccabi Haifa and Viktoria Plzen all secured their places in the group stage with 26 other already qualified teams, including defending champions Real Madrid.

Ahead of Thursday draw scheduled to hold in Istanbul, Turkey, here is how teams have been seeded.

Pot 1

Since UEFA changed the criteria for seeding, champions of the highest-ranked European leagues are guaranteed to be in the main pot. Therefore, the Champions League winners and La Liga Real Madrid will be accompanied in pot 1 by Eintracht Frankfurt, the champions of the Europa League.

2022/23 UEFA Champions League pots.

Premier League champions Manchester City, Serie A champions AC Milan, winners of the Bundesliga Bayern, Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain, Primeira Liga champions Porto and Eredivisie champions Ajax, are the other teams that make up this pot.

Pot 2

Pots 2, 3 and 4 contain the remaining teams, seeded based on their 2022 UEFA club coefficients.

In pot 2 includes, Liverpool, Chelsea, Barcelona, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, RB Leipzig and Tottenham Hotspur.

Either of these teams will meet the teams in pots 1, 3 and 4, but two teams from the same league, will not be drawn into the same group.

Chelsea drawn during a Champions League draw.

Pot 3

This pot will see Italian teams Inter Milan and Napoli and German side Borussia Dortmund give substance to some groups, if paired with equally tough opponents from other pots.

RB Salzburg, Shaktar Donetsk, Benfica, Sporting Lisbon and Bayer Leverkusen are the other teams that make up pot 3.

Pot 4

The fourth – and yet to be concluded pot – will have the weakest teams, although it contains some tough teams like Marseille. The French side finished second in Ligue 1 last season.

Others in pot 4 include Club Brugge, Celtic, Viktoria Plzen, Maccabi Haifa and the three winners of the playoff rounds: Dinamo Zagreb-Bodo Glimt, PSV-Rangers and Trabzonspor-Copenhagen, yet to be decided.