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.
