Champions League draw - Live Blog

Hello and welcome to the live blog of Champions League draw. We will be updating this blog live during the draw. We have never tried this before. Let us see how it goes. I will quote all comments in the live blog
The draw starts at 17:45 CET 11:45 Eastern Tine 8:45 Pacific Time.
See you shortly!


8:50a : Nothing much happening at the moment.
8:55a : Europe's Best Player of the year award to be given by Luís Figo
8:57a : Draw about to start couple of UEFA suits added to the stage
8:59a : Paul Breitner ambassador for the UEFA CL final 2012, never know such a title existed
9:01a : Lots of mumbo jumbo. First they will put the 8 teams in pot-1 in different groups
9:04a : Lets draw guys! i have to go to work :-)
9:05a : Man U in C, Porto in G
9:06a : Real Madrid in D
9:07a : Chelsea in E, Bayern in A, Inter in B
9:09a : Arsenal in F & Barça in H. Pot-1 is done.
9:13a : Sir Bobby Charlton speaking.. will help in the draw the Pot -2 Villarreal is here :D
9:14a : Olympique Lyonnais goes to play Real Madrid again :-)
9:15a : Benfica goes into C with Man U
9:16a : Marseille goes to F, play Arsenal, Valencia goes to E play Chelsea the Mata reunion
9:18a : Shaktar goes to G, with Porto, Milan goes to H and Barcelona
9:20a : Submarine goes to play Bayern! Ufff
9:21a : Villarreal, Valencia and Barça get tough draws so far. Real Madrid get an easy one
9:24a : Pot-3 Lille goes to B. Inter gets a easy draw, Zenit goes to G, another easy group at the outset
9:26a : Ajax goes to D, Real Madrid has an easy draw so far.
9:27a : Olympiakos to F, another group shaping up to be easy
9:28 : Now Man City.. to Bayern and Villarreal !! UFF what a group for the Submarine!
9:29 : Leverkusen goes to E, FC Basel to C
9:32 : wow what a draw for Villarreal, if we come out of this group, it is almost like winning the Cup
9:33 : pot-4 ready to go!
9:34 : Napoli.. dont go into A..Noooooooooo HOLY SMOLLY
9:35 : APOEL goes to G, I still cant believe we are in the Group of Death
9:36 : Paul Breitner is bad luck for us. Galati goes to C
9:37 : D. Zagreb to D
9;39 : Viktoria goes to H, Barça & Madrid have it easy.
9:40 : Valencia get Genk. Decent draw for our neighbours. Very good chances of qualifying
9:41 : Trabzonspor goes to B and Dortmund goes to F
We are done.
Villarreal get the mother of all groups of death. #AUPA submarino

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
FC Bayern	Inter	Man United	Real Madrid
Villarreal	CSKA Moscow	Benfica	Lyon
Man City	Lille	FC Basel	Ajax
Napoli	Trabzonspor	Galati	D.Zagreb
Group E	Group F	Group G	Group H
Chelsea	Arsenal	FC Porto	FC Barcelona
Valencia	Marseille	Shakhtar	Milan
Leverkusen	Olympiakos	Zenit	BATE Borisov
Genk	B.Dortmund	APOEL	Viktoria Plzen

Here are the 4-pots from which the teams will be picked. The rules are simple.
1. One team from each pot in each group
2. No two teams from the same league in the same group

Pot-1	Pot-2	Pot-3	Pot-4
Barcelona	Shakhtar	Olympiacos	Trabzonspor
Man United	Valencia	BATE	B.Dortmund
Chelsea	Villarreal	Manchester City	Genk
FC Bayern	CSKA Moscow	Lille	Napoli
Real Madrid	Marseille	Zenit	D.Zagreb
Porto	Milan	Ajax	APOEL
Inter	Lyon	Leverkusen	O.Galati
Arsenal	Benfica	Basel	Viktoria Plzen

The Champions League Draw - Start guessing!

The Draw is set for 1800 CET Noon Eastern 0900 Pacific

Update 8/24 11a Pacific : Lyon have qualified and are placed in Pot-2
Update 8/24 1230p Pacific : Fenerbahçe replaced to Trabzonspor for match fixing. BATE goes to pot-3 if the hold result today & Trabzonspor goes to pot-4
Update 8/24 130p Pacific:Benfica have qualified and are placed in Pot-2
Update 8/24 130p Pacific: Benfica have qualified and are placed in Pot-2
Update 8/24 130p Pacific: Arsenal have qualified and are placed in Pot-1 and this means Milan will be placed in Pot-2
Update 8/24 130p Pacific: BATE Borisov have qualified and are placed in Pot-3 as well as Viktoria Plzen

First of all let me congratulate all the fans of the Yellow submarine Villarreal. They came out fighting and even when they failed to score before HT, they kept the pressure up and got the result. Some great goals.


This means, Spain has 4 teams in Europe's premier competition again. We have 27 of 32 teams are set. The remaining 5 will be decided tomorrow. The next major event is the draw for the group phases. In this post we will see who are the likely opponents of all the 4 Spanish teams.


The Process

1. All the 32 teams are divided into 4 pots Pot-1, Pot-2, Pot-3, Pot-4 based on their UEFA co-efficient.
   
2. The UEFA co-efficient is determined by the performance of the team in the European competitions (UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League) over the past 5 years.
3. Each of the 8 groups A through H will constitute one team from each of the 4 pots.
4. No two teams from the same domestic league will be in the same group. This means all the 4 teams of Spain will be in 4 different groups.
   

The Pots

1. Real Madrid & Barcelona are in Pot-1
2. Valencia & Villarreal are in Pot-2

The good news is that both Valencia and Villarreal will in theory have at least two teams of lesser pedigree in European competitions over the past 5 years. But this is not always good news. For example, the impressive reigning Champions of Bundesliga Borussia Dortmund are in Pot-4. And the the hugely talented squad of Manchester City is in Pot-3

Here is how the Pots look as of August-23 8:30 PM Pacific

Pot-1	Pot-2	Pot-3	Pot-4
Barcelona	Shakhtar	Olympiacos	B.Dortmund
Man United	Villarreal	BATE	Trabzonspor
Chelsea	Valencia	Manchester City	Genk
FC Bayern	CSKA Moscow	Lille	Napoli
Real Madrid	Marseille	Zenit	D.Zagreb
Porto	Milan	Ajax	APOEL
Inter	Lyon	Leverkusen	O.Galati
Arsenal	Benfica	Basel	Viktoria Plzen

All teams in italics & red are based on provisional results in 1st legs. I will update this table after the 2nd leg results tomorrow.

So looking at the pots you may see the problem. It is possible we could have at least 2 group of deaths. For example: Barcelona, Milan, Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund is quite possibly the hardest group. I am sure most of the teams in Pot-1 and Pot-2 will be hoping to avoid Napoli & Dortmund from Pot-4 & Manchester City from Pot-3.

My predictions for the Spanish teams. Predicting some tough draws there. Hoping for the best!

POT-1	Real Madrid	Barcelona	Porto	Man United
POT-2	Shakhtar	Lyon	Villarreal	Valencia
POT-3	Lille	BATE	Manchester City	Zenit
POT-4	B.Dortmund	Napoli	APOEL	Genk

Keep visiting this early and often up until the draw.

For a detailed list of UEFA Coefficients and club rankings, visit here.