Pot 1 Chelsea Bayern Manchester City Atlético de Madrid Villarreal Inter Milan Sporting CP LOSC Lille Pot 2: Real Madrid Barcelona Juventus Manchester United PSG Liverpool Sevilla Borussia Dortmund Pot 3: FC Porto Ajax RB Leipzig Atalanta Zenit St. Petersburg TBD*, TBD*, TBD* Pot 4: AC Milan VfL Wolfsburg Club Brugge, TBD*, TBD*, TBD*, TBD*, TBD* noting that besiktas and Kiev are in but unsure which pot they go to until qualifiers are done Benfica, young boys, sheriff, salzburg and malmo are leading from first legs. And Monaco are trailing. It looks to me like 2nd pot is stacked and first pot is not so hot. If we avoid atletico and bayern we should do fine. Lile or villareal or sporting. 50/50 shot at an easy ride I guess The 3rd pot is reasonably strong and those are the teams we need to beat to qualify. Edit Final potd for lfc possible opponents Pot 1 Bayern Munich Atletico Madrid Villarreal Inter Milan Sporting CP Lille Pot 3 Porto Ajax RB Leipzig Benfica Atalanta Zenit St Petersburg Shakhtar Donetsk Salzburg Pot 4 Club Brugge Young Boys AC Milan Malmo Wolfsburg Besiktas Dynamo Kiev Sheriff Tiraspol
Especially since EL winners go into pot 1. Think everyone will be hoping for villareal sporting or lille. Think Lille could struggle to get out that group even though in pot 1 after losing some key players
Avoid Atletico and Bayern and it's all good. Or maybe get one of them, so we would avoid them in the next stage
This year psg are in there and juve too so yeah it's always strong but it's a nightmare for the city's and Chelsea's this year. I hope the get tough groups. I think in general barca might be a whopping boy this year. I hope city dont get them
It does as it automatically strengthens the other pots especially as europa and cl winners take 2 slots in pot 1. This year we have the two bankrupt spanish clubs. The two bankrupt italian clubs some german ****e two English sides, an oil doper club all in pot 2. Imo we want an easy ride here so anything that helps us let konate and gomez and tsimikas and the like get games would be ace. Piss weak pot 3 and 4 would be a help this year.
Some champions. makes it a lot easier for Lille and Sporting and Villareal. Otherwise they’d all be in pot 3 and 4 and be facing much tougher ties. Can see pros and cons. Obv makes pot 2 a lot stronger so the big teams who win their leagues may get punished. But at same time your rewarding clubs from lower leagues who win their league by giving gem an advantage. Should always be the case. Why should team that finished 4th in England sit in a higher pot than team that won the league in Portugal?
Knew someone would point that out. Probably should have put "for realistic challenges". Never said I disagreed with the system btw, I think teams winning their league should be rewarded
I should have added "in the current setup". I'd rather scrap seeding completely, make it completely random.
Am I misunderstanding you in some way here? Quite obviously there's a difference in quality between European leagues so the champions of one might be nowhere near the top 4 of one of the better leagues. The 4th placed English team of last year are European champions, you don't think that makes them a better team than the Portuguese champions?
They’re in pot 1 though. You sound like you’d prefer some kind of European super league where only the best teams in Europe go into it and none of the champions from the so called weaker leagues are allowed in
I don't sound like anything - I'm not offering a preference. I gave a simple answer to your question.
Only playing around. Just my opinion that giving league champions some kind of advantage over teams that finish 4th in their league is the right thing to do.
Largely I agree. But obviously being domestic champions can't be the sole criterion otherwise you'd be having Brugge, Olympiacos and the like in pot 1. There has to be a decision made as to which leagues have a sufficiently high standard to deserve that status. Portugal comes into that group according to UEFA, but honestly, who would back Sporting against any of our top 4?
The top leagues should be seeded. It is a quasi champions league still no? The decision has sweetened the 2nd pot and pushed a few teams down to the 3rd pot but it's made a total **** 4th pot and total makewieghts. It's really a group stage that decides 2nd and 3rd and who gets to europa. That's why imo the group stage is dull.
Probably be more fun as an "FA Cup" style draw, but obviously the big boys all want guaranteed games to get them money
