Live Updates

2017-18 Champions League group stage draw live from the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco

  • Premier League runners-up Tottenham drawn in tough Group H alongside holders Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and APOEL
  • Chelsea also face difficult Group C test against Atletico Madrid, AS Roma and Azerbaijani debutants Qarabag FK
  • Manchester United placed in Group A with Benfica, FC Basel and CSKA Moscow
  • Liverpool face Spartak Moscow, Sevilla and minnows Maribor in Group E
  • Celtic paired with another couple of big hitters in Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain as well as Anderlecht
  • Six group matchdays will take place between 12/13 September and 5/6 December
  • Final takes place at Kiev's Olympic Stadium on 26 May 2018
Champions League trophy

That just about wraps up our live coverage of the 2017-18 Champions League group stage draw, thanks for following along.

We will be back tomorrow afternoon to bring you the Europa League draw, which begins at 13.00 BST. Arsenal will be in unfamiliar territory there and should be joined by Everton, should the Toffees get through their play-off round second-leg decider away to Hajduk Split tonight.

You can join my IBTimes UK colleague Tony Mogan for updates from that potentially tricky fixture in Croatia.

Goodbye.

Ronaldo wins the Uefa men's player of the year award, while Barcelona's Dutch forward Lieke Martens, 2017 Women's Championship winner and Golden Ball recipient, takes the women's honour.

Juventus and Barcelona should progress safely from Group D. Group G isn't much of a crowd-pleaser, but debutants RB Leipzig will no doubt be thrilled with their lot given what could have transpired from their lowly position in pot four.

A very pleasant draw indeed for Manchester United and Liverpool, who will surely fancy their chances of winning their respective groups. The Reds will have the opportunity to avenge their 2015-16 Europa League final defeat to Sevilla in Basel.

Serie A title contenders Napoli pose a potential threat to Manchester City, but otherwise Group F also looks relatively straightforward.

Tottenham will be really up against it in Group H and will likely go toe-to-toe with Dortmund for a runner-up spot behind Real Madrid. Chelsea will not be thankful for a 2,500-mile trip to Azerbaijan being added to tough contests against Atletico and Roma.

Celtic, meanwhile, will be relishing another couple of atmospheric European nights in Glasgow against two giants in Bayern and PSG.

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Group H

Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Tottenham, APOEL

Group E

Spartak Moscow, Sevilla, Liverpool, MARIBOR

Group A

Benfica, Manchester United, FC Basel, CSKA MOSCOW

Group B

Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Anderlecht, CELTIC

Group D

Juventus, Barcelona, Olympiacos, SPORTING LISBON

Group F

Shakhtar Donetsk, Manchester City, Napoli, FEYENOORD

Group C

Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Roma, QARABAG FK

Group G

Monaco, Porto, Besiktas, RB LEIPZIG

Unsurprisingly, Cristiano Ronaldo is your 2016-17 Champions League forward of the year.

United and Liverpool will be very content thus far, while City should also be feeling confident.

Things look a bit trickier for Chelsea and especially Tottenham...

Group F

Shakhtar Donetsk, Manchester City, NAPOLI

Group D

Juventus, Barcelona, OLYMPIACOS

Group C

Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, ROMA

Group H

Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, TOTTENHAM

Group E

Spartak Moscow, Sevilla, LIVERPOOL

Group G

Monaco, Porto, BESIKTAS

Group A

Benfica, Manchester United, FC BASEL

Group B

Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, ANDERLECHT

The teams in pot three:

Napoli, Tottenham Hotspur, FC Basel, Olympiacos, Liverpool, Anderlecht, AS Roma, Besiktas

Luka Modric collects the best midfielder award. After a short speech from the brilliant Croatian, it's time for pot three...

Some big ties drawn there, with Bayern facing PSG, Borussia Dortmund paired with Real Madrid and Barcelona going up against Juventus.

There's a potential Diego Costa derby in Group C. A shame he won't be able to play if he does complete a move back to La Liga...

Group D

Juventus, BARCELONA

Group H

Real Madrid, BORUSSIA DORTMUND

Group E

Spartak Moscow, SEVILLA

Group F

Shakhtar Donetsk, MANCHESTER CITY

Group B

Bayern Munich, PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN

Group A

Benfica, MANCHESTER UNITED

Group C

Chelsea, ATLETICO MADRID

Group G

Monaco, FC PORTO

Time for pot two. Here are the teams that will be drawn now:

Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund, Sevilla, Manchester City, Manchester United, FC Porto

Twitter/@realmadriden

Pot one is now complete. To calm down after all that excitement, we will now take a break so that Sergio Ramos can be presented with his best defender award.

Group D

JUVENTUS

Group H

REAL MADRID

Group F

SHAKHTAR DONETSK

Group G

MONACO

Group B

BAYERN MUNICH

Twitter/@sjstandardsport

Group A

BENFICA

Shevchenko struggling a little bit here, it must be said...

Group C

CHELSEA

Group E

SPARTAK MOSCOW

Here we go then...

Here's a quick reminder of which teams make up pot one:

Real Madrid (holders), Bayern Munich, Juventus, Benfica, Chelsea, Shakhtar Donetsk, AS Monaco, Spartak Moscow

Right, time to get this show on the road at last. Uefa competitions director Giorgio Marchetti runs through the procedure before pot one is emptied...

The next award is for the best goalkeeper of the 2016-17 Champions League.

39-year-old Juventus stalwart Gianluigi Buffon scoops the honour. I'm sure that will make up for once again missing out on the one major trophy that still eludes him...

Former Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko, an ambassador for the 2018 final in Kiev, will be assisting with the draw alongside fellow Serie A legend Totti.

Aleksander Ceferin comes out to present the Uefa President's Award, which will go to recently retired AS Roma icon Francesco Totti.

Hosts Pedro Pinto and Reshmin Chowdhury have taken to the stage and we are now being treated to a Champions League highlights package from last season. Lovely.

The draw ceremony is about to get underway...

Courtesy of Uefa, here are all of the dates you need to know for this year's competition:

12/13 September: Group stage, matchday one
26/27 September: Group stage, matchday two
17/18 October: Group stage, matchday three
31 October/1 November: Group stage, matchday four
21/22 November: Group stage, matchday five
5/6 December: Group stage, matchday six

11 December: Round of 16 draw
13/14 & 20/21 February: Round of 16, first leg
6/7 & 13/14 March: Round of 16, second leg

16 March: Quarter-final draw
3/4 April: Quarter-finals, first leg
10/11 April: Quarter-finals, second leg

13 April: Semi-final and final draw
24/25 April: Semi-finals, first leg
1/2 May: Semi-finals, second leg

26 May: Final

Twitter/@OptaJoe
Twitter/@ChampionsLeague

Pot two certainly looks menacing and in a lot of ways much stronger than pot one, with Barcelona, PSG, Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and both Manchester clubs all lurking.

Liverpool and Tottenham will be only too aware that they could end up landing not one but two very big hitters this afternoon. Brendan Rodgers' Celtic, meanwhile, could be drawn alongside three!

Barcelona's unfamiliar place in the secondary pot means we will be spared all the histrionics of an early return to Catalonia for a certain Mr Neymar.

Real Madrid (pot one)

Best scenario: Porto, Anderlecht, Maribor

Worst scenario: PSG, Tottenham, RB Leipzig

Barcelona (pot two)

Best scenario: Spartak Moscow, Anderlecht, Maribor

Worst scenario: Bayern Munich, Tottenham, RB Leipzig

IBTimes UK have this week been busy predicting the best and worst case draw scenarios for all five Premier League teams plus Barcelona and Real Madrid. Let's take a look at those while we wait...

Chelsea (pot one)

Best scenario: FC Porto, Anderlecht, Maribor

Worst scenario: Barcelona, Napoli, RB Leipzig

Manchester City and Manchester United (pot two)

Best scenario: Spartak Moscow, Anderlecht, Maribor

Worst scenario: Real Madrid, Roma, RB Leipzig

Liverpool and Tottenham (pot three)

Best scenario: Spartak Moscow, FC Porto, Maribor

Worst scenario: Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, RB Leipzig

Pots

Pot one: Real Madrid (holders), Bayern Munich, Juventus, Benfica, Chelsea, Shakhtar Donetsk, AS Monaco, Spartak Moscow

Pot two: Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund, Sevilla, Manchester City, Manchester United, FC Porto

Pot three: Napoli, Tottenham Hotspur, FC Basel, Olympiacos, Liverpool, Anderlecht, AS Roma, Besiktas

Pot four: Celtic, APOEL, CSKA Moscow, Feyenoord, Sporting Lisbon, Maribor, Qarabag FK, RB Leipzig

Format

The 32 qualified teams are drawn into eight groups of four labelled A to H, where they will play each other twice over six matchdays between September and December. The sides are taken from four pre-determined pots which are assembled based on each club's Uefa coefficient – which is calculated by their results in European competition over the last five seasons.

The exception is pot one, which is comprised exclusively of the defending champions from the previous season plus the seven title winners from the top leagues in Europe, again based on Uefa's own ranking system. Those protected teams are the league winners from Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Russia.

Teams are drawn in pot order and initially positioned in order of the pot from which they came. No two teams from the same country can be drawn against one another, while sides from Russia and Ukraine are also kept apart for political reasoning. The draw is only complete when all 32 teams have been placed in the eight groups.

Hello and welcome to IBTimes UK's live coverage of the draw for the group stage of the 2017-18 edition of the Champions League.

Five Premier League teams will begin the competition proper this year for the first time ever, with Liverpool having put on an attacking clinic at Anfield last night to see off Hoffenheim 6-3 on aggregate and join Chelsea, Manchester City, Tottenham and Europa League holders Manchester United in the hat.

Real Madrid
Real Madrid are the reigning kings of Europe

Dominant Scottish champions Celtic have also toiled to get to this stage, defeating Linfield and Rosenborg before surviving a real second-leg fright in a quite incredible clash in Astana earlier this week.

Proceedings at Monaco's Grimaldi Forum are scheduled to commence at around 17.00 GMT although as ever with Uefa, there is unlikely to be any shortage of pomp and circumstance and tedious technical explanations. There are also several awards to be handed out, including men's and women's player of the year.

The road to Kiev starts here, folks.