Champions League Group stage

Pot 1: Barcelona, Bayern München, Chelsea, Benfica, Paris, Juventus, Zenit and PSV Eindhoven. There will be one side from pot 1 in each group.

The remaing three pots, as usual, are decided by each team's UEFA club coefficient.

Pot 2: Real Madrid, Atlético, Porto, Arsenal, Manchester United, Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen, Manchester City
Pot 3: Shakhtar Donetsk, Sevilla, Lyon, Dynamo Kyiv, Olympiacos, CSKA Moskva, Galatasaray, Roma
Pot 4: BATE Borisov, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg, Dinamo Zagreb, Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Gent, Malmö, Astana

All details subject to final confirmation of UEFA after the play-offs

No team can play a club from their own association and Russian and Ukrainian teams cannot meet.
The draw also establishes the groups for the UEFA Champions League path of the expanded UEFA Youth League.
The draw ceremony includes the vote for and presentation of the 2014/15 UEFA Best Player in Europe Awards for men and women.

What is new about this draw?

Qualifiers:

As for every season since 1999/2000, 32 teams will enter the draw and be split into eight groups of four, to play each other home and away.
Twenty-two teams are assured of their place, to be joined by the ten play-offwinners.
The teams include Sevilla, the first club to qualify as UEFA Europa League winners.
As Valencia beat Monaco in the play-offs, Spain are the first nation to have five teams in the group stage.
Astana are the first team from Kazakhstan to make it.
Unlike in previous years, following a change in the regulations, pot 1 for the draw will now be formed by the holders and the champions of the top seven associations: Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Russia.
As Barcelona are also Spanish champions, the eighth-ranked Netherlands receive the vacant seeding place.

Do seedings matter? We investigate...

When will matches be played?

Group stage draw: 17.45CET, 27 August, Monaco
Matchday one: 15/16 September
Matchday two: 29/30 September
Matchday three: 20/21 October
Matchday four: 3/4 November
Matchday five: 24/25 November
Matchday six: 8/9 December

Round of 16 draw: 12.00CET, 14 December, Nyon
Round of 16, first leg: 16/17/23/24 February
Round of 16, second leg: 8/9/15/16 March
Quarter-final draw: 12.00CET, 18 March, Nyon
Quarter-final, first leg: 5/6 April
Quarter-final second leg: 12/13 April
Semi-final draw: 12.00CET, 15 April. Nyon
Semi-final, first leg: 26/27 April
Semi-final, second leg: 3/4 May
Final: 20.45CET, 28 May, San Siro