26.08.2010 12:05

Champions League group stage draw

www.fcbarcelona.cat

Barça players and fans will find out on Thursday afternoon which teams they will have to play in the group stage of the Champions League. Barça has the best coefficient in Europe (137) and will not be drawn together with any of the other top seeds.

The road to next year’s Wembley final starts here. The group-stage draw will take place at 6 pm (CET) in Monaco and according to UEFA rules, Barça cannot be drawn against any of the other seven teams in the top seed pot or against any team from the Spanish league – in this case Valencia and Real Madrid. The 32 teams going into the draw will be seeded as follows:

SEED POT 1: Inter (101), Barça (137), Manchester United (125), Chelsea (118), Arsenal (115), Bayern Munich (111), AC Milan (100) and Lyon (97).

SEED POT 2: Werder Bremen (95), Real Madrid (85), Roma (84), Shakhtar Donetsk (74), Benfica (73), Valencia (67), Marseille (63) and Panathinaikos (57).

SEED POT 3: Tottenham (56), Glasgow Rangers (56), Ajax (55), Schalke 04 (55), Basel (49), Sporting de Braga (40), FC Copenhagen (34) and Spartak Moscow (34).

SEED POT 4: Hapoel Tel-Aviv (28), Twente (25), Rubin Kazan (22), Auxerre (20), Cluj (16), Partizan (14), Zilina (11) and Busaspor (7).

Barça will be drawn against one team from Seed Pot 2 (except Valencia or Real Madrid), one from Seed Pot 3 and one from Seed Pot 4.

Match calendar

The group stage matches will be played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The first matches will be on 14th and 15th September and the sixth and final group stage matches on 7th and 8th December.