Valencia in Pot 2 for CL draw

Valencia will join Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in Pot 2 for Thursday’s Champions League draw, with Barcelona first seeds and Sevilla unclear.

Thursday’s draw will be the first time one country has five representatives in the group stages of the Champions League after Los Che beat Monaco in a play-off.

Sevilla qualify as the winners of the Europa League, the first time the victors in that competition enter the Champions League automatically the following season.

Barca meanwhile are the holders of the trophy after beating Juventus, while the year before saw an all-Spain final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, as Los Blancos claimed La Decima.

Barca, as League winners, enter the first group of seeds and their strong coefficients mean the Madrid clubs and Valencia are second seeds.

AS notes they are currently joined by Porto, Arsenal, Manchester City, Shakhtar Donetsk and Sevilla.

Sevilla’s place is far from guaranteed, however, and they are at risk of dropping to the third pot, depending on the outcome of Wednesday’s play-offs.

Victories for either Manchester United or Bayer Leverkusen would see Los Rojiblancos fall into the third group as both the English and German clubs have better coefficients.

United lead Club Brugge 3-1 from their first leg encounter, while Leverkusen lost 1-0 to Lazio in theirs.

Barca are joined by seven other League winners as No 1 seeds – Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, Zenit St. Petersburg and PSV Eindhoven.

La Liga - Club News