Official Champions League Thread

[Scooby Blue]

Pot A : Man Utd / Chelsea / Arsenal / Barcelona / Bayern Munich / Real Madrid / Inter / Porto

Pot B: AC Milan / Lyon / Shaktar Donetsk / Valencia / Benfica / Villareal / CSKA Moscow / Marseille

Pot C: Zenit St Petersburg / Rangers / Ajax / Bayer Leverkusen / FC Copenhagen / Fenerbache / Man City / Twente Enschede

Pot D: Borussia Dortmund / Basle / Napoli / + other qualifiers.

Depending on who gets through qualifiers, groups could look something like above.

Edit: Whoops - I left out Olympiakos who would be in pot 3 (higher co-efficient than City)

Seems to me touch + go whether we will end up in Pot 3 or Pot 4.

City are guaranteed to be in Pot 3.

There are five teams with lower coefficients qualified directly for the group stages:

Lille
Borussia Dortmund
Napoli
The Swiss champions
Oţelul Galaţi

There will be five qualifiers from the Champions' Playoff. There can only be two with a higher coefficient than City: Rangers and FC Copenhagen.

That would make City the team with the 24th highest coefficient of the 32 at worse.

If Rangers or Copenhagen fail to qualify via the two rounds that could put City up further.

There are five qualifiers from the non-Champions Play-off round. If any of the likes of Benfica, Dynamo Kiev, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, or Villarreal fail to make it through, they could go higher still.

City are highly unlikely to make Pot 2.

That means would could get one from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter, Porto or maybe Bayern from Pot 1.

They could get one from Valencia, CSKA, Marseille, Milan, Shankhar, Zenit St Petersburg, etc from Pot 2.

There could be one from Lille, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli, Basel, Oţelul Galaţi, plus possibly BATE Borisov, Maccabi Haifa, Dinamo Zabreb from Pot 4.

Thanks for the update. Good news.

It strikes me that below Pot 1, there is one "rogue" team in each pot, that everyone will want to avoid.

AC Milan from Pot 2 (assuming Bayern Munich qualify)
City from Pot 3 (clearly more of a Pot 2 "quality" team , but handicapped by our low coefficient)
Borussia Dortmund from Pot 4 (same as City...they are better than some teams in Pot 3).

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

We need to add winning European away matches to the menu of steel over the summer, get to top our group and have a softie in the knockouts - or is it all microwaved balls again.

 

[joe salford]

Want Porto away, early in the group stages, blues in flip flops and bermudas on the beach pissed up. Get in!

 

[Skilly McRailnob]

so even though we finished ahead of Arsenal in the league, Arsenal will be in pot 1 and city pot 3?

 

[foley87]

so even though we finished ahead of Arsenal in the league, Arsenal will be in pot 1 and city pot 3?

yes. they have been cl regulars for 10 years or so. this is our first year. they have a much better coefficient

 

[Scooby Blue]

so even though we finished ahead of Arsenal in the league, Arsenal will be in pot 1 and city pot 3?

Seeding is based on total of points accumulated in last 5 years
(see my thread on UEFA coefficient for more details).

The system rewards consistency in qualifying for (and getting through) group stages more than anything.

Blank years when a team misses out on Europe altogether will eventually drag a team's ranking down...but it takes time.

There are, however, no plans to award points for:
- a sense of history
- wallowing in grief + self-pity
- getting former players as pundits on MOTD
- a back catalogue of "great European nights"

As a result, both City + Spurs are capable of achieving a higher European ranking coefficient than Liverpool "We've won it 5 times*" Football Club within a couple of seasons.

* Official Registered Trademark