Best and worst case Champions League draws for Barcelona

Barcelona will be hoping to start their campaign to end three years of Real Madrid dominance in Europe with a straightforward group.

The major domestic leagues in Europe are now all under way, so the Champions League group stage draw is close. Barcelona will find out who they are playing on Thursday 30th August. Last season’s La Liga title means they are in pot one, but they could still end up facing some top teams.

They will avoid Bayern Munich, PSG, Juventus, Manchester City and Lokomotiv Moscow due to the league champions of the six highest ranking nations being in pot one alongside the Champions League and Europa League winners. Valencia are the only team Spanish team outside the top pot, but they won’t be drawn into the same group due to being domestic rivals.

Being in the top pot doesn’t guarantee a nice group, though. The calibre of teams in the competition as well as the use of coefficient scores from the past five seasons mean that top teams can be spread around the lower pots especially if they have only returned to the Champions League recently.

These are the teams in each pot…

Pot one: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Lokomotiv Moscow.

Pot two: Borussia Dortmund, Porto, Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Benfica, Napoli, Tottenham Hotspur, Roma.

Pot three: Liverpool, Schalke, Lyon, Monaco, Ajax, CSKA Moscow, PSV Eindhoven, Valencia.

Pot four: Viktoria Plzen, Club Brugge, Galatasaray, Young Boys, Inter Milan, Hoffenheim, Crvena Zvezda, AEK Athens.

Best case scenario

Benfica, CSKA Moscow, Viktoria Plzen.

Shakhtar Donetsk, Porto and Benfica are probably the three weakest teams in pot two. However, Benfica finished bottom of their group last season with zero points. They haven’t strengthened significantly, so they shouldn’t offer too much of a threat this season.

CSKA , Ajax and PSV are the weakest teams because they aren’t in one of the top European leagues. Ajax have a clearly defined playing style with a mix of promising talents and experienced veterans while PSV showed encouraging signs in their 6-2 aggregate victory over BATE Borisov. CSKA were unable to beat Basel to second place in their group last season and finished second in the league, so they would be an easy opponent.

There are few teams in this pot that could challenge Barcelona. However, Viktoria Plzen have offered little in the Champions League over the past few seasons, which means they would be an ideal opponent to finish off the group.

Worst case scenario

Borussia Dortmund, Liverpool, Inter Milan.

It’s hard to choose the toughest team in pot two because Dortmund, Napoli and Tottenham are all top sides. Even Manchester United would represent a challenge, although Jose Mourinho’s third season meltdown will weaken them. Roma could pose problems as shown by last season, but it would be nice to face them again and Barcelona would certainly have the motivation.

Dortmund allow this unique combination, though, because Tottenham would rule out Liverpool and Napoli would stop Barca being able to play Inter. Therefore, this is the worst possible combination because each team would represent a tough task to overcome.

It’s highly likely that the Catalans could navigate through this successfully, but it would probably come at the expense of results in other competitions during a time when Barcelona usually build a lead on their major league rivals.