With this season’s UEFA Champions League final billed to take place at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey on 10 June 2023, the group stage draws were made in the Turkish city amidst plenty of glitz and fanfare.
Rangers’ reward for making it to the group stage for the first time in 12 years after overcoming PSV Eindhoven is mouth-watering games against six-time champions of Europe Liverpool, Ajax and Napoli in Group A.
Group B will see keenly-contested clashes between Portuguese giants Porto, Spanish top side Atletico Madrid, Germany’s Bayer Leverkusen and Belgian heavyweights Club Bruges.
With 14 UEFA Champions League titles between them, it will be intriguing to see how Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Inter Milan will navigate their way to progress from Group C which also has minnows Victoria Plzen who many expect to be the whipping boys.
Group D looks pretty balanced with last season’s Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt, Tottenham, Sporting Lisbon and Marseille all poised to cancel each other out -at least on paper.
With two-time winners Chelsea facing two tough games against AC Milan, Thomas Tuchel’s side will hope to advance to the knockout stage from Group E which is also made up of Austrian side RB Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb.
Record 14-time winners Real Madrid will lock horns over 6 games with Scottish giants Celtic, Germany’s RB Leipzig and Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk, who are playing their home games in Warsaw, Poland in Group F.
Sevilla, and FC Copenhagen await Manchester City, who will be banking on the firepower of Haaland in this season’s competiton especially against his former club Borussia Dortmund in Group G.
Heavyweight fixtures are expected between Paris St-Germain and Juventus, who are joined by Benfica and Isreali side Maccabi Haifa in Group E.
The group stage matches will take place over nine midweeks between 6 September and 2 November.