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Manchester United will face Paris St-Germain, RB Leipzig and Istanbul Basaksehir in the group stage of the Champions League this season.
Premier League champions Liverpool will have to negotiate a group that includes Ajax, Atalanta and Danish Midtjylland.
Chelsea will play Europa League champions Sevilla, Krasnodar and rookies Rennes.
Manchester City are in Group D with Porto, Olympiakos and Marseille.
Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will face off after Juventus and Barcelona were tied in Group G, while current Bayern Munich will meet Atlético de Madrid in Group A.
The draw, which also saw Real Madrid and Inter Milan paired in Group A, took place without the presence of the club’s leaders due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
And it was a particularly tough draw for Manchester United, who will play last season’s finalist Paris St-Germain, as well as 2020 semi-finalist RB Leipzig.
This year’s group stage begins on Tuesday, October 20, while the final is on Saturday, May 29, 2021 at Istanbul’s Ataturk Stadium.
Full group stage draw:
Group A: Bayern Munich, Atlético de Madrid, Salzburg, Lokomotiv Moscow
Group B: Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Inter Milan, Borussia Monchengladbach
Group C: Porto, Manchester City, Olympiakos, Marseille
Group D: Liverpool, Ajax, Atalanta, Midtjylland
Group E: Sevilla, Chelsea, FK Krasnodar, Rennes
Group F: Zenit Saint Petersburg, Borussia Dortmund, Lazio, Bruges
Group G: Juventus, Barcelona, Dynamo Kyiv, Ferencvaros
Group H: Paris St-Germain, Manchester United, RB Leipzig, Istanbul Basaksehir
Will the fans return for the great nights of the Champions League?
Following Thursday’s draw, it was announced that fans could partially return to UEFA matches for the first time since March, where local laws allow.
Beginning with the October international break, fans will be limited to 30% of the stadium’s capacity, but visiting fans will not be able to attend.
Social distancing will be mandatory and additional precautionary measures, such as wearing masks, should be implemented in accordance with local regulations.
UEFA’s decision comes after more than 15,000 supporters attended a pilot at the Super Cup match between Bayern Munich and Sevilla in Budapest on September 24.
In a statement, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin described the decision as “a sensible first step that prioritizes the health of fans and respects the laws of each country.”
Messi vs. Ronaldo
It has been one of the biggest rivalries in world soccer for the past decade, and now Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will meet once again in the Champions League.
When Barcelona faced Juventus in Group C, fans around the world immediately began to expect a match between the two.
They have won 11 of the last 12 Ballon d’Or awards, Messi with a record six and Ronaldo with five.
Of his 35 competitive encounters, Messi has won 16 times to Ronaldo’s 10 and the remaining nine matches ended in a draw.
However, Ronaldo leads the way in Champions League successes, winning the trophy five times compared to Messi’s four successes.
Analysis of ‘outsiders united to progress’
Simon Stone, BBC Sport
If they hoped to escape the pressure on them to get new signings when today’s Champions League draw took place, Manchester United did not.
Two of last season’s semi-finalists, and a long trip to Turkey, is not what they would have wanted from their top seed in Pot Two. It means that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men will be outsiders even to survive.
If there is one straw to fill the glass, it is the memory of their 3-1 victory over PSG at the Parc des Princes two seasons ago, which annulled a 2-0 loss in the home game, which was one of the best nights of your party. illustrious European history.
The other three participants in the group stage from England will be reasonably satisfied.
Chelsea have faced Europa League champions Sevilla, who represented United and Wolves on their way to the final in Cologne, where they beat Inter Milan, but Frank Lampard will love his team coming out of a group which includes the French Rennes and the Russian newcomers Krasnodar.
So disappointed to get out of the quarter-final stage in August thanks to their surprising loss to Lyon, Manchester City attracted arguably the top favorite, Porto, plus Olympiakos and Marseille, two teams they had never met before.
Liverpool, winner in 2019 and a finalist defeated the previous year, face another club with a magnificent European history, Ajax, who surprisingly have only played in one other tie, back in 1966, when the Dutch team won two games. .
They had never faced their other two opponents, Atalanta and Midtjylland before, but it would be a huge surprise if Jurgen Klopp’s team did not reach the knockout stages.
Champions League statistics
- Manchester United have progressed from the group stage in 82% of their previous Champions League campaigns (18/22), and the last time they did not do so was in 2015-16 with Louis van Gaal.
- Since Alex Ferguson retired, Manchester United’s best results in the Champions League have been two quarter-final appearances: in 2013-14 with David Moyes and more recently in 2018-19, with Ole Gunnar Solskjær.
- Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has made it through the Champions League group stage in six of his seven seasons running the competition, reaching the final three times: he lost to Borussia Dortmund in 2013 and Liverpool in 2018, before winning with the Reds. in 2019 against the Spurs.
- Liverpool have lost each of their last four Champions League away games at Italian clubs: two against Napoli (2018 and 2019) and once against Roma (2018) and Fiorentina (2009).
- Manchester City have won 13 of their last 18 Champions League matches (D3 L2), and their two losses in this race came in the quarter-final stage against Spurs in 2018-19 and Lyon in 2019-20.
- In his first seven seasons as a coach in the Champions League as manager of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Pep Guardiola reached at least the semi-final of the competition each season – in his four as manager of Manchester City, Guardiola has not gone further. past the quarterfinal stage.
- Chelsea have lost only one of their last 14 Champions League group stage matches at Stamford Bridge (9 wins, 4 draws); their only loss in this streak is the only time in the previous 30 home group stage matches in which they have failed to score (0-1 v Valencia).
- Sevilla will be the fifth different Spanish team that Chelsea have faced in the Champions League, with the Blues undefeated in the first match with each of the previous four (W3 D1).
