For the penultimate time, the UEFA Champions League will feature 32 of Europe’s finest vying for the biggest club prize in the men’s game, and with the qualifying playoffs complete as of Wednesday, the field is set for Thursday’s draw (noon ET) in Istanbul, the site of the June 2023 final.
FC Copenhagen, Dinamo Zagreb, Rangers, Viktoria Plzen, Benfica and Maccabi Haifa were the six winners who emerged from the play-in rounds to round out the field, which will once again feature a slew of clubs looking to unseat 14-time European champion Real Madrid.
UEFA structures the pots as follows: Pot 1 contains the reigning Champions League and Europa League winners (Real Madrid, Eintracht Frankfurt) and the domestic title winners from the top six leagues according to the region’s coefficient. The remaining pots are set in club coefficient order (a formula that takes into account the results of each club in UEFA competitions based on performances over the last five seasons), which limits the potential for true groups of death but does offer some intriguing possibilities. It’s when the Pot 3 teams—this time including clubs such as Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan and Napoli—get distributed Thursday where the fun truly begins.
