As it happened: the Champions League group draw 2019-2020
The Champions League group stages draw in Monaco, as it happened.
Virgil Van Dijk wins the UEFA Player of the Year award!
The best defender of the last Champions League is also the best player of the year for UEFA. He beats Messi and Cristiano in their overall performance: second in the Premier League, runner-up in the Nations League and Champions League winner.
More group progressions...
The audience looks expectantly as the groups continue to be announced. We are starting to get a good look at what the Champions League draw will look like now...
Group A: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Club Brugge
Group B: Bayern Munich, Tottenham, Olympiacos
Group C: Manchester City, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dinamo Zagreb
Group D: Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen
Group E: Liverpool, Napoli, Salzburg
Group F: Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan
Group G: Zenit Saint Petersburg, Benfica, Lyon
Group H: Chelsea, Ajax, Valencia
Midfielder of the year goes to De Jong!
The young Barça player impressed everyone with his performance for Ajax last year, making it to the Champions League quarter-finals. Fresh talent for the future here.
Some retakes of last year's matches then... Juventus and Atletico, Liverpool and Napoli!
The groups, as it currently stands, look like this:
Group A: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid
Group B: Bayern Munich, Tottenham
Group C: Manchester City, Shakhtar Donetsk
Group D: Juventus, Atletico Madrid
Group E: Liverpool, Napoli
Group F: Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund
Group G: Zenit Saint Petersburg, Benfica
Group H: Chelsea, Ajax
The draw continues... Bayern Munich is joined by Tottenham in group B!
The second part of the draw continues. Peter Cech and Wesley Sneijder are sorting out the groups team by team, letter by letter. We will bring you the complete list as soon as the ceremony continues.
Defender of the Year
The award for best defender in last season’s Champions League goes to... Virgil Van Dijk! Again, no surprises here.
Group of death this year?
As Eric Cantona, President's Award recipient, speaks, let's go over what could be this year's group of death. Liverpool, Real Madrid, Inter and RB Leipzig are strong contenders for the group of death, but to be fair, teams seem to be stronger than ever and, as last year's experience taught us, anything could happen.
The Ceremony has started!
As the ceremony gets underway, here's a few more pictures of stars arriving. Van Dijk looking as cool as ever.
The stars have started arriving!
The eternal rivals are both here... These two should meet more often.
Here's a little explanation as to how this works...
The top pot contains the two UEFA competition winners as well as the champions of the six highest-ranked nations. That means Liverpool and Chelsea are joined by Manchester City, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Zenit St Petersburg. The remaining teams are then split across pots two to four by order of the club coefficient rankings. No team can be drawn against a club from their own league.
Before we go any further, first things first: the pots.
Pot one: Liverpool, Chelsea, Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Zenit St Petersburg
Pot two: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli, Shakhtar Donetsk, Tottenham, Ajax, Benfica
Pot three: Lyon, Bayer Leverkusen, Salzburg, Olympiakos, Club Bruges, Valencia, Inter Milan, Dinamo Zagreb
Pot four: Lokomotiv Moscow, Genk, Galatasaray, RB Leipzig, Slavia Prague, Red Star Belgrade, Atalanta, Lille
Welcome to our Champions League draw coverage!
It's Champions League draw day and 32 teams will soon learn who they're going to be facing in the group stage. We'll be bringing you all the build-up and news as it happens from the draw, which is being held, as is tradition, at Monaco's Grimaldi Forum.