Sunday, May 20th, 2012
The Champions League Draw takes place at 5pm UK time today in Monaco. There are 32 sides in there and everyone seems remarkably confused as to how it works. No longer – here is our 101 guide.
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How things function is really very simple. The teams have been divided into 4 “pots” of 8 clubs, based on the standing of their coutry in European football and their history. These will be drawn out pot by pot, so firstly all the teams in Pot 1 will be placed into a group from A-H. Then all the teams in Pot 2 and so on.
So here are the pots – there are restrictions which make things more complicated that we’ll come to shortly.
Pot 1: AC Milan, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Lyon, Manchester Utd
Pot 2: Benfica, Marseille, Panathanikos, Real Madrid, Roma, Shaktar Donetsk, Valencia, Werder Bremen
Pot 3: Ajax, Basle, Braga, FC Copenhagen, Rangers, Schalke, Spartak Moscow, Tottenham
Pot 4: Auxerre, Bursaspor, Cluj, Hapoel Tel-Aviv, MSK Zilna, Partizan Belgrade, Rubin Kazan, Twente
The first rule that narrows down the options is teams from the same country cannot meet in the group stages. So, for example, Spurs will have to go in a group that contains one of the pot one sides AC Milan, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan or Lyon.
The second restriction concerns “TV pairings”. These are designed to maximise TV exposure. So, Spartak Moscow and Rubin Kazan of Russia will not be allowed to be in groups which play on the same night. Groups A-D will be called red groups, and E-H blue groups. So if Spartak get a red group, Rubin must go in one of the blue groups.
This means that the draw, near the end, will be filled in by a computer to make sure there are no clashes. We’d love to see them have to stop and start again with smoke pouring from the computer but it’s not happening. See you back here on sportnewsbase.com after 5pm. We’ll have the draw details as soon as it’s complete.