Champions League draw

taking place this afternoon in Monaco, teams from the same country cannot meet each other.

Pot 1: Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern München, Juventus, Benfica, Paris, Zenit, PSV Eindhoven

Pot 2: Real Madrid, Atlético, Porto, Arsenal, Manchester United, Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen, Manchester City

Pot 3: Shakhtar Donetsk, Sevilla, Lyon, Dynamo Kiev, Olympiacos, CSKA Moscow, Galatasaray, Roma

Pot 4: BATE Borisov, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg, Dynamo Zagreb, Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Gent, Malmö, Astana

Man United will draw PSV, Arsenal will get Barcelona and Man City will get Bayern. History has a knack of repeating itself.

Can anyone explain why Utd are in pot 2 and not 3 ? I recall plenty pundits saying it was important to finnish in the top 3 otherwise you'll end up in pot 3.

onyerway wrote: Can anyone explain why Utd are in pot 2 and not 3 ? I recall plenty pundits saying it was important to finnish in the top 3 otherwise you'll end up in pot 3.

don't know but everybody knows that the draw is fixed in favour of the most popular clubs in order to get as many matches out of them so that the TV stations can rake in the money with advertising. When I say fixed I mean that the top teams avoid each other until the quarter finals. It should be an open draw not this team cant play that team because they come from the same country in the group stages and teams who have meet in the group stages cant play each other in the last 16 and then the team with the highest finish gets to play away first so that they know what to do at home in the 2nd leg.

Surely it`s seeded?

Bob Brogan wrote: Surely it`s seeded?

that's the problem, it should not be. Just stick all the teams in a hat and draw them out when it comes to the knock out. If you are seeded higher you get the away match first which is a farce.

I agree with u Chicken. 2 German teams in pot 4 and England's 4th best team that didn't qualify last year in pot 2. Bob it used to be seeded and then they changed it and now I have no idea but its a joke

chicken n chips wrote:

Bob Brogan wrote: Surely it`s seeded?

that's the problem, it should not be. Just stick all the teams in a hat and draw them out when it comes to the knock out. If you are seeded higher you get the away match first which is a farce.

Then it would be back to the old days when pish played pish and made it through to the closing stages

Bob Brogan wrote:

chicken n chips wrote:

Bob Brogan wrote: Surely it`s seeded?

that's the problem, it should not be. Just stick all the teams in a hat and draw them out when it comes to the knock out. If you are seeded higher you get the away match first which is a farce.

Then it would be back to the old days when pish played pish and made it through to the closing stages

would that not be great if it happened again? Man U would be in the final this year then :lol:

Champions league should be for the champions of each country. Crazy that teams who finish 4th get into it but then its all about the revenue and nothing else. Teams like Arsenal who have made it 18 years in a row have only made 1 final and 2 semi finals. Man United won it in 99 when the previous season they finished 4th and had to qualify (please not again this time round). Champions League has become pretty boring as only 3 or possibly 4 teams can realistically win it namely Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Bayern and maybe you can add Chelsea to that list. Otherwise the rest might as well just not bother imo

For me "seeding" is just another word for legalised fixing. I think all knock-out sport tournaments should be random.

I think that the one team most teams don't want to play although it will be a relatively easy 6 points is Kazakhstan-based Astana. Its nearly a 6 thousand mile round trip from the UK.

If it was only the best then the other tournaments would end up being better than the CPL?

ok Barca,Man Utd and PSG would be in the CPL

but REAL,ATHLETICO,CHELSEA,ARSENAL would be in the uefa