On Thursday evening, AC Milan will learn who stands between them and a place in the 2023/24 Champions League round of 16 as the group stage draw takes place.
Milan reached the semi-finals last season where they were beaten by an Inter side that went on to lose in the final against Manchester City in Istanbul.
What time is the Champions League group stage draw?
The draw for the 2023/24 Champions League group stage is set to commence at 18:00 CEST (17:00 BST, 12:00 EDT, 09:00 PDT) on Thursday, August 31.
The draw is at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
The 2023-24 Champions League pots
The teams are split into four different pots based on where they finished last season in their domestic leagues, tournaments won last season and performances in this season’s qualifiers.
Milan find themselves in Pot 3 which means they could face at least two very tough sides.
Pot 1: Benfica, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Feyenoord, Manchester City, Napoli, Paris Saint-Germain, Sevilla
Pot 2: Atletico Madrid, Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Inter, RB Leipzig, Manchester United, Porto, Real Madrid
Pot 3: Lazio, Milan, RB Salzburg, Shakhtar Donetsk, Braga, Red Star, PSV, Copenhagen
Pot 4: Galatasaray, Lens, Newcastle, Real Sociedad, Union Berlin, Celtic, Young Boys, Antwerp
When are the 2023-24 Champions League group stage matches?
Once the draw has been completed, fans can start planning their travel arrangements to whichever cities have been opened up to them.
The dates for the Champions League group matches can be found below:
- Matchday 1: 19/20 September 2023
- Matchday 2: 3/4 October 2023
- Matchday 3: 24/25 October 2023
- Matchday 4: 7/8 November 2023
- Matchday 5: 28/29 November 2023
- Matchday 6: 12/13 December 2023
Please no Man City-Real Madrid-AC Milan-Galatasaray
So you’re saying Galatassaray is stronger than Newcastle? Lol.
No 2 teams from 1 League genius. Ouch.
AC milan can play any club
Ppprrreeettttt…..
Be playing 🤣
theres an error in that last group because fc copenhagen is playing against Rakow Czestochowa right now in a couple f minutes,
I hope we draw feyenoord – atl madrid – copenhagen
or from pot 4 one of these Young Boys – Rakow Czestochowa, Aek Athens/Antwerp.
oh my mistake so copenhagen is in pot 3 and rakow in 4rth hmm how does that work 😀 , anyways hoped i would have a match in denmark
😀 young biys in both pot 3 and 4 thats some serious errors here 😀
It just means Young Boys will either be in Pot 3 or Pot 4 depending on the outcome of Copenhagen vs Rakow.
The coefficients that determine how the pots are split have them ranked: Copenhagen > Young Boys > Rakow
Oh my apologies to euan then, got a bit confused. Thanks for clarifying it 🙂
by the way awesome goal by copenhagen from propably 35 meters or sometthing
Of course we will end up in a group of death…
It’s written in the stars lmao. Probably the last season of Carlo Ancelotti in the Champions League so facing his ex team in the Champions League would be very logical and Man City vs Real Madrid third season in row lol. Predictable….
Very very difficult draw.
Atletico, Arsenal, Dortmund, Manchester United, and Real Madrid in any day could be in Pot 1.
I hope we get Feyenoord, Benfica, or Sevilla on pot 1
And Porto or Leipzig on pot 2
I did a simulator like 10 times, and I’m not exaggerating when I say we had a difficult group every time. Real Madrid in Pot 2 was like a magnet, and there are many strong teams in Pot 4.
The key to having an ideal group for Milan is drawing one of the weaker options from Pot 1: Sevilla, Benfica, Feyenoord.
That being said, a difficult group is unavoidable in this year’s competition and I look forward to seeing how Milan fare. I like our chances if the early Serie A fixtures are any indication.
I did the simulator also and I got Feyenoord, Leipzig and Galatasaray
Sevilla, Man Utd and Celtic.
Milan and Sevilla going thru
First pot has a 4:3 chance of getting a particularly bad one
Second pot, 8:1 chance of a s very tricky team and even Porto aren’t an ‘easy’ draw
The fourth pot is the biggest fear – Newcastle or Sociedad would be a terrible draw compared to the others. Still, Union, Lens, Galatasaray… none of those will be pushovers either.
I hope and I pray milan will be at same group with Bayern Munich , Real Madrid and Newcastle . It’s gonna be interesting , we know where our level is
SHUT UP!!!!
Newcastle and Eddie Howe are noobs to the Champions League. They don’t have quite the squad depth to do a proper Champions League campaign, and as their recent late collapse to Liverpool, AT HOME, in the last ten minutes of the match, leading 1-0, with Liverpool down to ten men, and then letting somebody as inconsistent as Darwin Nunez score twice on them, shows just how fragile they really are.
Real will be missing Courtouis in goal as he suffered an ACL tear – they got Kepa, Chelsea’s “most expensive short-arm goalkeeper in the world” in goal instead (on loan).
Like all short/short armed goalkeepers, Kepa regularly led the league in allowing long range shots from outside the box in.
Pulisic has beaten Real before, in the semi-finals of Chelsea’s drive to winning the Champions League in 2021
This is some level 1000 thinking right here
I’ve been saying all along, we have a tough draw which can condition our domestic season.
That Pot 4 has some tough teams.
Paris, Leipzig and sociedad
And then Euro League
If we get group of death, then Pioli MUST put priority on SERIE A this season and win the highest possible position in serie a.
We need to get lucky in at least one between pot 1 and 2, which means getting at least one between Feynord, Sevilla, Benfica, Porto and Liepzig. Atletico and Dormundt are also similar to our level I think. Then avoid Newcastle on 4.
The best part: no Juventus in sight.
Milan, PSG, Porto, Newcastle will be nice. Donna, Sandro, Taremi (if he join us) will face old club
Make Dem put man city and Bayern Munich together for group stage
PSG , Real Madrid ,AC Milan ,Newcastle. This group can make donna & tonali come back to milano as player also ancelotti as real madrid coach . Of course AC Milan and Real madrid will qualify 😆😆😆
Looking at all the clubs in different pots, I doubt we will make any impact on the group stages. Pioli is a bit inferior to European teams. Serie A is more of his favorite but gradually he is learning the fast pace, 3 steps ahead tactics used in Uefa.
Bayern, Real, Milan, Newcastle.
Benfica, Man United, Red Star, Antwerp.
No easy games in CL – Bring it on. Let’s see what we are made of…