Real Madrid to find out their UCL opponents tonight
Real Madrid will finally find out who their opponents will be in the UEFA Champions League as they look forward to the official draw tonight. The competition kicks off next month!
Los Merengues have been placed in Pot 2 for this season based on coefficients. Pot 1 now only includes last season’s UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League winners as well as the champions of each of the six highest-ranked leagues in Europe. Pots 2 until 4 all consists of teams based on their UEFA coefficients.
Pots:
Pot 1 –
Liverpool (England)
Chelsea (England)
Barcelona (Spain)
Manchester City (England)
Juventus (Italy)
Bayern Munich (Germany)
PSG (France)
Zenit (Russia)
Pot 2 –
Real Madrid (Spain)
Atletico Madrid (Spain)
Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
Napoli (Italy)
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
Tottenham Hotspur (England)
Ajax (Netherlands)
Benfica (Portugal)
Pot 3 –
Lyon (France)
Bayer Leverkusen (Germany)
Salzburg (Austria)
Olympiacos (Greece)
Club Brugge (Belgium)
Valencia (Spain)
Inter Milan (Italy)
Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
Pot 4 –
Lokomotiv Moscow (Russia)
Genk (Belgium)
Galatasaray (Turkey)
Leipzig (Germany)
Slavia Praha (Czech Republic)
Crvena Zvezda (Serbia)
Atlanta (Italy)
Lille (France)
With Real Madrid currently being in Pot 2, that increases their chances of finding themselves placed in a “Group of Death” as all the teams in Pot 1 will be extremely difficult to beat with Pot 3 having a couple strong teams that Los Blancos could potentially struggle against.
Anyone in Pot 1 against Real Madrid will be a great game for the neutrals and a nerve-wrecking one for Madridistas other than maybe Zenit who are the weakest team in the group but that doesn’t necessarily make them an easy team to beat as the traveling to Russia alone could cause problems for their rivals. Barcelona are the only team in that group that Real Madrid won’t be able to face since both are from Spain.
Pot 3 have a couple surprises as Inter Milan find themselves back in the UEFA Champions League and they have made quite a few changes to their squad ahead of the new season while hiring Antonio Conte as the manager. Real Madrid have a very dark history with Lyon but things have changed drastically for the French team in the past few years so they aren’t as big of contenders as they used to be.
Pot 4 is the ‘weakest’ pot of the four but things could be difficult for Real Madrid if they get picked against teams such as Galatasaray, Leipzig or even Crvena Zvezda as playing in Serbia is something no other team will want to do given the atmosphere in the stadiums there.
During the ceremony, we will also find out the following awards:
UEFA Men’s Player of the Year
UEFA Women’s Player of the Year
Goalkeeper of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Defender of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Midfielder of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Forward of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
The first matches of the competition will be played on September 17/18.