It starts again! Only 39 days after the triumph in Lisbon, the new Champions League season is already around the corner for Bayern. On Thursday, the eyes of the treble winners and 31 other top European clubs will be eagerly directed to Geneva, where the draw for this year's group stage will take place from 17:00 CEST this evening. fcbayern.com has summarised the most important information about the draw.
How will the draw work?
The 32 participating teams are divided into four pots. The teams in pot 1 are seeded: the defending champions, the UEFA Europa League winners and the champions of the six leagues with the highest coefficient. The clubs not seeded are allocated to pots 2 to 4 at the time of the draw according to their UEFA coefficient, which is calculated from their performances over the past five seasons.
For each group, a team will be drawn from each pot. Clubs from the same national association cannot meet, so FC Bayern cannot face Borussia Dortmund (pot 2), RB Leipzig (pot 3) or Borussia Mönchengladbach (pot 4).
The pots
Pot 1: Bayern (defending champions), Sevilla (UEFA Europa League winners), Real Madrid, Liverpool, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Zenit St. Petersburg, Porto
Pot 2: Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Manchester City, Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetzk, Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, Ajax
Pot 3: Dynamo Kiev, RB Salzburg, RB Leipzig, Inter Milan, Olympiakos, Lazio, Atalanta, FK Krasnodar
Pot 4: Lokomotiv Moscow, Olympique Marseille, Club Brügge, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Istanbul Basaksehir, FC Midtjylland, Stade Rennes, Ferencvaros Budapest
When will the games be played?
The group stage begins on 20/21 October and will finish on 8/9 December. The exact match dates are:
Matchday 1: 20/21 October
Matchday 2: 27/28 October
Matchday 3: 3/4 November
Matchday 4: 24/25 November
Matchday 5: 1/2 December
Matchday 6: 8/9 December
Will a Bayern player be Europe's footballer of the year 2020? Two stars from Munich are in the top three👇
What else is happening?
As well as the group stage draw, a number of honours will be awarded by UEFA. And these involve FC Bayern as well. Captain Manuel Neuer and striker Robert Lewandowski are in the final three up for the European Footballer of the Year award, with Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City) completing the shortlist.
The vote for Europe's Coach of the Year is between Champions League winner Hansi Flick, Jürgen Klopp (Liverpool) and Thomas Tuchel (Paris Saint-Germain).
And the FC Bayern stars are also involved in the position-related honours for the past Champions League season. The men from Munich are well represented with the goalkeepers (Neuer, Keylor Navas, Jan Oblak), defenders (David Alaba, Alphonso Davies, Joshua Kimmich), midfielders (Thomas Müller, Thiago, de Bruyne) and strikers (Lewandowski, Kylian Mbappé, Neymar) .
FC Bayern players dominate the UEFA positional awards 👇
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