ALL EYES ON ISTANBUL: What you need to know about today’s Champions League draw

Just 90 days on from Vinicius Junior's winner for Real Madrid against Liverpool in the Paris final, the Champions League proper is back once again with the group stage draw.

The cream of European football will await the outcome of Thursday evening's draw in Istanbul, which will host the final on June 10 next year.

There will be 32 teams seeded into four pots for the group phase draw and they will be arranged into eight groups of four teams.

The Champions League group stage draw in Istanbul takes place on Thursday evening, getting underway from 5pm Nigeria time.

It's all going to feel pretty hurried this season because all six rounds of group matches have to be squeezed in before the World Cup in Qatar.

Therefore, the first set of games will be on September 6/7 and the last on November 1/2, meaning it's a sprint to the knockout stages.

The lowdown on each of the 32 teams that will be in the draw at 5 pm on Thursday.

POT ONE

Real Madrid

Eintracht Frankfurt

Manchester City

AC Milan

 Bayern Munich

Paris Saint-Germain

 

Porto

Ajax

 

POT TWO

Liverpool

 Chelsea

Barcelona

Juventus

Atletico Madrid

Sevilla

RB Leipzig

Tottenham Hotspur

POT THREE  

Borussia Dortmund  

Red Bull Salzburg

Shakhtar Donetsk

Inter Milan

 

Napoli

Benfica

Sporting Lisbon 

Bayer Leverkusen

POT FOUR

Marseille

Club Brugge

Celtic

Viktoria Plzen

Maccabi Haifa

Rangers

FC Copenhagen 

Dinamo Zagreb