Everything you need to know about the 2021/22 Champions League draw
It’s one of the red letter days of the year. Thursday 26 August brings the draw for the group stage of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League.
1. Live on Barça TV+
You can watch the whole thing live from Istanbul from 6.00pm CEST on Barça TV+.
2. Barça in Pot 2
POT ONE includes the defending champions of the previous edition (Chelsea) plus the winners of the Europa League (Villarreal), together with the winners of the six highest ranked leagues. Barça cannot be drawn against any other teams from La Liga.
Atlético Madrid, Villarreal, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Lille, Inter Milan, Sporting Lisbon, Chelsea.
Barça are in POT TWO, which is unusually strong this year. All but one of the teams (Sevilla) is a previous champion. Barça will avoid playing against any of these clubs.
Real Madrid, Juventus, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool, Sevilla, Borussia Dortmund
POT THREE is as follows. Note that Barça cannot be drawn in the same group as more than one team from the same national league. The potential opponents include Red Bull Salzburg who Barça recently met in a friendly.
Porto, Ajax, Shakhtar Donetsk, RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg, Benfica, Atalanta, Zenit Saint Petersburg
And finally the theoretically weakest POT FOUR, which includes the first ever Moldovan qualifier (Sherriff), which is the only represented country that Barça has never visited before. But there are some strong opponents among the mix, most surprisingly seven-time champions AC Milan:
Beşiktaş, Dynamo Kyiv, Club Brugge, Young Boys, AC Milan, Malmö, VfL Wolfsburg, Sheriff Tiraspol
Remember that the teams in Barça’s group will also be the ones that they play in the UEFA Youth League.
3. Possible new opponents
There are no fewer than eight teams in the draw that Barça have never faced before in a competitive match: Lille, Leipzig, Wolfsburg, Atalanta, Zenit, Malmö, Young Boys, Red Bull Salzburg and Sherriff Tiraspol.
4. The dates
The six match days for group stage fixtures are as follows. The exact times and dates will not be announced until after the draw:
- September 14 and 15
- September 28 and 29
- October 19 and 20
- November 2 and 3
- November 23 and 24
- December 7 and 8
5. 26th appearance by Barça
Barça have only missed out on the group stage of this competition on four occasions since it was introduced in 1992/93. That’s a total of 26 participations, a record the blaugrana share with Real Madrid.
6. Player of the Year announcements
The women’s Player of the Year award is heading to FC Barcelona. We know that for sure because all three nominees (Alexia Putellas, Lieke Martens and Jenni Hermoso) are from the club.
Lluís Cortés is also in the running for the Coach of the Year award, while there are seven candidates for positional awards (and eight if we include new signing Irene Paredes). These are Sandra Paños (goalkeeper, Mapi León (defender), Aitana Bonmatí and Alexia (midfielder) and Caroline Graham Hansen, Jenni Hermoso and Lieke Martens (forward).