Manchester City have been drawn with Juventus, Sevilla and Borussia Mönchengladbach at the draw in Monaco on Thursday and the group has been named ‘Group of Death’
Another tough group features the dominant French team, Paris St.-Germain; the Spanish giant Real Madrid; the Ukranian contender Shakhtar Donetsk, which made the final 16 last year; and the Swedish champion Malmo.
Arsenal, which has advanced from the group stage for 12 consecutive years, will have to negotiate a group that includes Bayern Munich, Olympiacos of Greece and Dinamo Zagreb.
Manchester United, returning to the competition after a year away, was drawn with PSV Eindhoven, CSKA Moscow and Wolfsburg. The Premier League champion, Chelsea, looks very likely to advance from a group with Porto, Dynamo Kiev and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Barcelona, the defending champion, will face Germany’s Bayer Leverkusen, Roma of Italy’s Serie A and BATE of Belarus.
The easiest groups look to be Group H, with Zenit-St. Petersburg, Valencia, Lyon and Gent of Belgium, and Group C, with Benfica, Atlético Madrid, Galatasaray and Astana.
Two teams advance from each group to the Round of 16. The group stage will begin in three weeks, with the first of six match days on Sept. 15 and 16.
The draw was conducted at a stately pace amid much pomp, with greats like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo looking on from the audience. The process involved first drawing a team’s name from one bowl, then its group from another. A dignitary was on hand to scramble the balls in the bowls with his hand before each was drawn.
Under a rule change this year, the top seeds were the defending champion, Barcelona, and the winners of the top seven European leagues. (In the past, a team’s performance in the Champions League in recent years was used to determine the top seeds.) The change produced a pot of top seeds that included the powerhouses Chelsea, Bayern, Juventus and PSG, but also three teams from weaker leagues: Benfica, Zenit and PSV.
That left some perennial European powers like Real Madrid and Manchester United and the top English teams Arsenal and Manchester City among the second seeds.
For the first time, the winner of the secondary Europa League, Sevilla, was given an automatic berth in the group stage, meaning that Spain will have five teams in the stage for the first time.
Group A
Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Malmo
Group B
PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Wolfsburg
Group C
Benfica, Atlético Madrid, Galatasaray, Astana
Group D
Juventus, Manchester City, Sevilla, Borussia Mönchengladbach
Group E
Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Roma, Bate Borisov
Group F
Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Olympiakos, Dinamo Zagreb
Group G
Chelsea, Porto, Dynamo Kiev, Maccabi Tel Aviv
Group H
Zenit Saint Petersburg, Valencia, Lyon, Gent