The projected pots for the Champions League draw of the upcoming season have been verified after most of Europe’s top leagues have concluded, according The Daily Mail.
New Champions League format explained
With the group stage template scrapped, the continent’s top tournament has undergone a significant change in preparation for the upcoming season, which saw the introduction of a new league stage format where all 36 teams are ranked against one another.
Teams will compete in eight rather than six games during the qualifying round. The top eight teams will advance to the round of 16, while teams ranked ninth through twenty-four will compete in a play-off to earn a spot among them.
The draw, which is scheduled for later this summer, will feature four pots as usual, with nine teams positioned in pots determined by UEFA coefficient rankings that take into account clubs’ results in European tournaments over the previous five years.
Arsenal misses out on pot one seeding
While other pots have not yet been decided, pot one has been confirmed, with Arsenal missing out as a result of their six-year absence from the Champions League prior to this season.
The Gunners, with a coefficient score of 72.000, are ranked 16th out of the teams who have advanced to the Champions League for the next season, and 22nd in UEFA’s club coefficient rankings. Thus, they will be put in pot number two.
The teams who have been confirmed for pot one are Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG, Liverpool, Inter, Borussia Dortmund, Leipzig, and Barcelona – who made it to pot one due to Roma’s failure to qualify after their final game of the Serie A season.
Instead of using a pot one consisting of holders, Europa League winners, and domestic champions, groups are now determined solely by coefficient rankings.
Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Atalanta, Juventus, Benfica, Arsenal, Club Brugge, and AC Milan are confirmed into pot two; Shakhtar Donetsk is expected to join them through qualifying.
Although there are still seven slots available in the qualification phase, Aston Villa, which is the last Premier League side participating in the competition with a score of 20.860, should be in pot four if all goes according to plan.
With one club from each pot in groups of four, being in a lower pot under the former Champions League model would have meant more challenging matches for a team.
Now, however, each side will face two teams from every pot, including their own, so it won’t matter which pot they are in, making the task equally challenging.
New format, an advantage to Arsenal
In the former format, it would have looked more challenging for Arsenal using the recently predicted pots, as missing out on top seed would mean they will definitely face heavyweights in European football.
However, with the new league stage format, Arsenal might be lucky enough to escape being pitted with the bigguns, as a lower pot does not automatically mean difficult oppositions.
Nonetheless, with two teams from pot two having to face the Gunners in addition to two teams from pot one, Arsenal’s placement in pot two rather than pot one may have a detrimental effect on other teams.
