Clubs await Champions League fate

Clubs await Champions League fate

by tuan.blogger.hettien ~ Thursday, August 27, 2009

Five British clubs will discover their Champions League opponents when the draw for the group stage is made at 1700 BST on Thursday.

Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Scottish champions Rangers will all be involved.

The 32 teams will be split into eight groups of four, with the first matches to be played on 15/16 September.

The four English sides are among the top seeds, with Rangers in the second tier with Real Madrid and Inter Milan.

That means Rangers could face any one of the English quartet, while United could meet Madrid - and their former star Cristiano Ronaldo.

United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Rangers all reached the first round automatically, while Arsenal eased to a 5-1 aggregate victory over Celtic in qualifying to clinch their place in the lucrative stages of Europe's premier competition.

Wolfsburg, Rubin Kazan, AZ Alkmaar, Standard Liege, Unirea Urziceni, Debrecen, APOEL Nicosia and FC Zurich will make their Champions League debut in this year's tournament.

The eight group winners plus the runners-up go through to the knockout stages of the competition, while the teams finishing third go into the Europa League.

Real Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium will stage the Champions League final on Saturday, 22 May 2010.