Manchester City are likely to be handed a tough introduction to life in the Champions League when the group stage draw takes place in Monaco on Thursday.
City are set to be among the third seeds, meaning the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Inter Milan are all potential opponents.
A group with Barcelona, AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund is a possibility.
Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, if they qualify, are top seeds so will avoid most of Europe's biggest clubs.
The Gunners take a 1-0 lead into the second leg of their qualifying play-off away to Udinese on Wednesday.
If they miss out, it will be the first time since the 1997-98 season that Arsenal have not competed in Europe's elite club competition.
LIKELY POTS FOR THURSDAY'S DRAW
Pot one - Manchester United, Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Arsenal*, Real Madrid, Porto, Inter Milan.
Pot two - Shakhtar Donetsk, Lyon*, Villarreal, AC Milan, Valencia, Marseille, CSKA Moscow, Benfica*.
Pot three - Zenit St Petersburg, Man City, Olympiakos, Ajax, Bayer Leverkusen, Fenerbahce, Basle, Lille.
Pot four - Borussia Dortmund, BATE*, Dinamo Zagreb, Napoli, APOEL, Genk, Otelul Galati, Viktoria Plzen*.
*If they qualify on Wednesday
Three-time winners United werebeaten in the 2010 final by Barcelona, while Chelsea are still searching for their maiden Champions League title.
City are competing at this level for the first time but the size and strength of their squad suggests they are the most dangerous of the third-seeded clubs.
Manager Roberto Mancini intends to rotate his squad to ensure City are capable of challenging in Europe alongside the three domestic competitions.
"Rotating is no problem for me," said the Italian. "The problem is if you don't have good players.
"For the manager it is not easy because all the players want to play every game. But when you play in four competitions and have a match every three days, there is space for everyone. It is impossible to play a top game every three days.
"And the Champions League is very hard. It is different from the Europa League. For this we need a good team, with good players and a good mentality."
Uefa's rules for the draw will see the 32 qualified teams allocated into eight groups of four teams. Each group will contain a top seed, plus one club each from the second, third and fourth pots.
Each pot is determined by a club's Uefa ranking but even the fourth pot contains some teams the English clubs would hope to avoid such as Dortmund - though the Germans could still be among the third seeds depending on Wednesday's results - as well as Napoli and Dinamo Zagreb.
The top two in each group will go through to the knock-out phase of the Champions League, and the third-place side to the knock-out phase of the Europa League
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment