Who The Premier League Clubs Could Draw In The Champions League

Liverpool know which eight teams they could possibly play in the Champions League group stages, after Benfica's shock loss on Tuesday night.

The Portuguese side were knocked out in the third round of qualifying by PAOK, with an own goal from new signing Jan Vertonghen and a goal from former Benfica player Andrija Zivkovic ending their Champions League campaign in its first game.

The result means that Ajax will be in pot 2 for the draw, when the Dutch side would have been in the lower pot had Benfica qualified as expected.

Benfica's elimination means that, whilst there's still two rounds of qualifying to go, the top two pots have been confirmed, as per the Mirror.

Pot 1: Real Madrid, Liverpool, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Zenit St Petersburg, Porto, Sevilla.

Pot 2: Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, Ajax.

Pot 3: Dinamo Kiev*, Red Bull Salzburg*, RB Leipzig, Inter Milan, Olympiakos*, Lazio, Atalanta, Dinamo Zagreb*.

Pot 4: Lokomotiv Moscow, Marseille, Bruges, Slavia Prague*, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Basaksehir, PAOK Salonika*, Rennes.

* Yet to qualify.

Bayern won the Champions League in August, beating PSG in the final. Image: PA Images

Pot one is full of the champions from the top six leagues according to UEFA coefficient as well as the Champions League and Europa League winners.

With Bayern Munich having won the Champions League and Bundesliga the Russian league's champions Zenit join pot one for the season.

With clubs not being able to play teams from the same country in the groups, or last 16, Jurgen Klopp's side know they will avoid City, United and Chelsea and face either Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Borussia Dortmund or Ajax.

Liverpool were knocked out by Atletico Madrid last season. Image: PA Images

The remaining three English sides are all in pot 2 because of their own UEFA coefficient for their performances in European competitions in the past five years. City are in sixth, United eighth and Chelsea 16th.

Each of them will face one of the champions from pot 1, apart from Liverpool of course, and will have to wait for the end of the play-offs to work out who else they could play.

Topics: Manchester City, Liverpool, Football News, Manchester United, Premier League, Champions League, Bayern Munich

Ryan Sidle

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