At some point last season, somewhere here on RAWK, amid all the excitement of the Champions League Final, there was a discussion about which pot we would get in next season's competition. Had we won, we would have been in Pot One.
So what's the situation now? As there's no proper football on for a few weeks, I thought I'd have a look.
Well, first of all, under the current rules, the Champions of Europe and Europa Cup Winners are joined in Pot One by the winners of the remaining top Six ranked leagues.
So pot one will be:
1. Real Madrid (CL Winners)
2. Atletico Madrid (Europa Winners)
3. Bayern Munich (German Champions)
4. Barcelona (Spanish Champions)
5. Juventus (Italian Champions)
6. PSG (French Champignons)
7. Manchester City (English Champions)
8. Lokomotiv Moscow (Russian Champions)
After that, it's based on club coefficients.
https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/club/index.htmlLiverpool are currently ranked 22, which does not bode well for our chances of a Pot 2 spot. Roma are ranked 21.
Confirmed Pot 2 clubs:
1. Dortmund
2. Porto
3. Manchester United
4. Shaktar
5. Napoli
6. Spurs
(Roma)
We need seven clubs above us in the ranking to miss out to get into Pot 2.
Seville (6) finished 7th in Spain.
Arsenal (9) finished 6th in the Premier League.
Chelsea (13) finished 5th in the Premier League.
Zenit (15) finished 6th in Russia.
Leverkusen (20) finished 5th in Germany.
The remaining clubs who are above us in the coefficients, and playing in the qualifiers are:
Basel - (18) who will enter at the 2nd Qualifying Round, where they will play PAOK (draw was yesterday, the sneaked that one out!)
Benfica (15) - who will enter at the 3rd Qualifying Round, where they are seeded in the League Path.
We need
both to go out before the Group Stage to get us into Pot 2. There is a chance they could play one another at the Play Off stage, which would obviously be bad.
EDIT: They won't be drawn against one another in the play off round as both would be seeded.
So chances are it's Pot 3 for us. Obviously we have a score to settle with Real, and I'd take Porto from Pot 2.