Manchester City will face Shakhtar Donetsk for a third consecutive season in the Champions League group stages after the draw for the group stages was made today.
City, one of the hot favourites to lift the title this season, were also drawn together with Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb, and Italian Champions League newcomers Atalanta of Serie A.
City will face another long haul trip to Ukraine to face familiar foes in Shakhtar and their new Portuguese manager Luis Castro after Paulo Fonseca left to take over at Roma.
But the rest of their group isn’t exactly a comprised of short trips with games at the San Siro in Italy and in Croatia in the offing.
English clubs mainly managed to avoid difficult ties, with three of the four clubs given top seeding – City for being Premier League champions, Liverpool for being current Champions League holders, and Chelsea for being current Europa League holders.
Defending Champions Liverpool were drawn in a relatively kind group with Napoli, Salzburg, and Genk.
Europa League winners Chelsea have Ajax, Valencia, and Lille to contend with.
Tottenham, who were in the second pot of seeds, drew a difficult group with Bayern Munich, Olympakos and Red Star Belgrade.
UEFA Champions League 2019/2020 Group stage draw in full
Group A: Paris St-Germain, Real Madrid, Club Bruges, Galatasaray
Group B: Bayern Munich, Tottenham, Olympiakos, Red Star Belgrade
Group C: Manchester City, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dinamo Zagreb, Atalanta
Group D: Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lokomotiv Moscow
Group E: Liverpool, Napoli, Salzburg, Genk
Group F: Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, Slavia Prague
Group G: Zenit St Petersburg, Benfica, Lyon, RB Leipzig
Group H: Chelsea, Ajax, Valencia, Lille
UEFA Players of the Year announced
Ex-Manchester City full back Lucy Bronze and Liverpool centre half Virgil Van Dijk were named UEFA Women’s and Men’s player of the year respectively.
Bronze, 27, beat her Lyon team mates Ada Hegerberg and Amandine Henry to the award while Van Dijk, 28, managed to keep both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at bay to claim the prize which was voted for by top coaches and journalists.