The day is finally upon us. This evening, in Monaco, the draw will be made for the group stages of the 2023-24 Champions League.
You can read everything that you need to know about the draw including when it will take place, the rules and the fixture dates for the actual games themselves in a guide that we published last night.
Below is a reminder of how the four pots look with all the teams confirmed…
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
From this, we can start to deduce what would be the best and worst-case scenarios for Milan in tonight’s draw, and let’s start with a pessimistic outcome.
There are several teams to avoid in Pot 1, with holders Manchester City, Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich and Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain the toughest names.
Pot 2 has Real Madrid, Manchester United, Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid as the big hitters, while even Pot 4 has tricky sides in there like Real Sociedad, Newcastle United, RC Lens and Union Berlin.
Worst case: Manchester City, Real Madrid, RC Lens OR Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Newcastle United.
Looking at the potential best case (with respect to every side) Feyenoord, Sevilla and Benfica stand out in Pot 1, while RB Leipzig and Porto might be the ‘weaker’ sides from Pot 2, and Pot 4 has a few wild card but beatable opponnents.
Best case: Feyenoord, Porto, Celtic.
Manchester City, Real Madrid, RC Lens looks the most obvious one. Would be a good test for us and I would be more than happy to see Real Madrid play in the Europa League lol.
Bring on Tonali!
I have a strong feeling milan will be in one group with newcastle.
These groups seeding, they never totally random or coincidental aren’t they.
I hope I am wrong in this one and you are correct coz we will beat Newcastle if we face em. Arguably, apart from Man City and Bayern who are the clear favorites to win this, we might be able to beat every other team if our core players are in top form.
Considering sometimes real life is stranger than fiction, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see Tonali back so soon in Toon’s jersey lol.
Its going to be:
Barcelona
Leipzig
Ac Milan
Newcastle
Milan
Psg
Dortmond
Newcastle
If somehow we can avoid M. City, Bayern and R. Madrid, I would consider it a favourable draw.
Imagine a group with PSG and Newcastle and we have to play against Donna and Tonali.
I think that would be good one..
Barcelona
Porto
Milan
Galatasaray