Guide To 2022-23 UEFA Champions League Group Stage Draw

Guide to 2022-23 UEFA Champions League Group Stage Draw which will feature six British teams amongst a 32-team pool. 

The draw for this season’s competition will feature 32 teams of which 26 clubs automatically qualified for this stage, whilst the remaining six came through various Qualifying Rounds to secure their spot in the draw.

There will be considerable interest for British fans with four English and two Scottish clubs having secured their spots in the hat, which hasn’t happened since 2007-08 season, which culminated in an English champion from an all-English Final.

Here, you can find a guide to everything that you need to know about the Group Stage draw from which clubs are in which pot to when fixtures will be played plus more.

 

When is Group Stage Draw?

The draw for this season’s Group Stage will take place at 5pm BST UK Time today (25 August) in Istanbul, Turkey, which will host the Final at Ataturk Olympic Stadium on 10 June 2023.

 

Who Are Involved In The Draw?

32 teams will be involved in the draw with six British teams set to be involved, with England’s Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur having all qualified for this stage automatically, alongside Scotland’s Celtic who benefitted from a ban on participation of Russian clubs.

Rangers meanwhile came through two Qualifying Rounds to secure their place in the Group Stage draw, where they plus their five fellow British teams will be joined by reigning champions – Real Madrid plus Eintracht Frankfurt amongst other clubs.

 

How Will The Draw Work?

All 32 teams will be split into four pots which will each contain eight teams, with Pots Two to Four containing teams ranked in UEFA Coefficient order.

Pot One though will be made up of the domestic champions of the seven highest ranked European countries (Spain, England, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and Netherlands) plus the reigning Europa League champion – Eintracht Frankfurt.

Real Madrid are also seeded in Pot One as reigning champions despite having qualified as reigning champions, having beaten Liverpool in last season’s Final.

Here are all four pots in full.

Pot One	Pot Two	Pot Three	Pot Four
Real Madrid	Liverpool	Borussia Dortmund	Rangers
Eintracht Frankfurt	Chelsea	RB Salzburg	Dinamo Zagreb
Manchester City	Barcelona	Shakhtar Donetsk	Marseille
AC Milan	Juventus	Inter Milan	Copenhagen
Bayern Munich	Atletico Madrid	Napoli	Club Brugge
PSG	Sevilla	Benfica	Celtic
Porto	RB Leipzig	Sporting CP	Viktoria Plzen
Ajax	Tottenham Hotspur	Bayer Leverkusen	Maccabi Haifa

 

When Will The Group Stage take place?

Due to the movement of 2022 FIFA World Cup to November, the six matchdays of this season’s Champions League Group Stage will be played across eight weeks instead of the traditional 12 weeks.

Another change will see the matchdays played in pairs across consecutive midweeks across the following dates;

• Matchday One – 6-7 September
• Matchday Two – 13-14 September
• Matchday Three – 4-5 October
• Matchday Four – 11-12 October
• Matchday Five – 25-26 October
• Matchday Six – 1-2 November

The knockout stages though will be unaffected although the Round of 16 Draw will take place on 7 November, instead of its usual mid December date in order to avoid any overlap with the World Cup.