The draw is precise

The group stage of the Champions League is fast approaching! In a week, its draw will take place in Istanbul. While there are still six places to take to integrate the top 32 of European football, the hats are already largely known. With a second pot more dense than ever, there will be entry shocks and probably big ones that will not advance to the knockout stages. Given that the seeded status is offered to the champions of the six best championships in the UEFA index but also to the last winners of the C1 and C3, teams like Lille, Sporting Lisbon, Inter Milan or Villarreal will be protected.

If Chelsea, Atlético Madrid, Manchester City or Bayern Munich are also in this pot 1, this is not the case of big names like Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Juventus, Manchester United, Paris, Liverpool, Seville or the Borussia Dortmund. These eight formations are in the second hat. And are so many scarecrows for the other qualified.

Explanations between favorites from the group stage?

Pep Guardiola and Lionel Messi could therefore end up meeting in the fall but only in a hasty remake of the last Champions League semi-final between Manchester City and PSG. Such a duo would leave very little chance of qualification for the other two members of the group. Even if we find regulars to continental epics in hat three. Ajax Amsterdam, RB Leipzig or Atalanta Bergamo are among them. And they could be joined by Monaco if the Principality’s club qualifies and the results of the other play-offs are favorable to them. For the moment, this is not the case with the options taken by Benfica, or Red Bull Salzburg.

If they turn things around against Shakhtar Donetsk, Niko Kovac’s men are more likely to be in the fourth hat. Where the most modest clubs are used to being placed, the team to avoid is already known: AC Milan. For its return to C1, the Lombard club is at the same level as Bruges, Wolfsburg or teams that won the first leg jump-off such as Sheriff Tiraspol, Young Boys or Malmö. It is not impossible to see a death group made up of Chelsea, PSG, RB Leipzig and Rossoneri. So many shocks that should not be missed during the six European days scheduled for between now and mid-December.

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