- Manchester City drawn in Champions League group C with Barcelona, Celtic and Borussia Monchengladbach
- UEFA change qualification criteria for Champions League in 2018
- Claudio Bravo signs for Manchester City
- Joe Hart assured of place in England squad – for now
Barcelona reunion for Pep Guardiola
The Champions league draw for the group stage of the 2016/17 season was staged yesterday and Manchester City were handed another tough group.
There was a reunion with Barcelona for City’s new manager Pep Guardiola. City’s group stage opponents from last season, Borussia Monchengladbach were also in the group alongside Scottish champions Celtic.
It’s not the first return to the Nou Camp for Guardiola since his exit in 2013, his Bayern Munich side lost 3-0 there and subsequently failed to qualify for the final in May 2015.
City were beaten four times out of four in Champions League meetings by Barcelona since 2014 although they did beat Borussia Monchengladbach home and away in last season’s group stage.
City have never faced Celtic in a competitive game.
UEFA reorganises Champions League, favouring bigger European leagues
Europe’s top four clubs will be given four guaranteed places in the Champions League group stages from the 2018/19 season.
The current top four European countries according to UEFA ranking are Spain, Germany, England and Italy.
At the moment, the top three countries – Spain, Germany and England – get three group stage places and their fourth place finishing teams must win a play-off round in order to quality.
The Italians have only two guaranteed places, with one additional play-off place for the third place finisher.
The news may come as a relief for English clubs who were worried about the prospect of losing the fourth Champions League spot to Italy who were improving rapidly in the rankings.
The change in qualification weights the system towards bigger countries containing arguably more heritage clubs capable of bringing in ever higher television advertising revenues.
City, who finished fourth last season, qualified for the group stage after completing a 6-0 aggregate win over Steaua Bucharest in their play-off.
The group and knockout stage of the Champions League will remain unchanged with 32 teams in eight groups of four competing for 16 places in the knockout phase.
There is no place in this season’s Champions League for the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, AC Milan and Inter Milan and UEFA stopped short of declaring that named teams would be taking part.
If UEFA used a wildcard system, as for tennis, they could have allowed entry to teams that did not qualify through traditional means but this would impact on the ability of smaller teams from unfashionable countries from reaching the group stage of the Champions League.
Claudio Bravo joins Manchester City
New Manchester City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, completed his signing for City from Barcelona yesterday for a fee believed to be in the region of £15.4.
The deal with add-ons could rise to £17.1m.
The 33-year-old Chilean arrived on a four year deal from Barcelona with who he spent two years since arriving in 2014 and won eight trophies.
There has been no word yet on the fate of Joe Hart, who made his first and possibly last appearance of the season in the 1-0 Champions League win over Steaua Bucharest at the Etihad on Wednesday.
England manager Sam Allardyce confirmed that Hart would be named in his first squad for the World Cup qualifier against Slovakia on September 4.
But Allardyce was concerned at the lack of game time for Hart, who had a poor European Championships with England in the summer.