Manchester City will discover their Champions League fate later this week, with the group stage draw taking place in Istanbul on Thursday.
It is the competition which has continually eluded Pep Guardiola’s side with May’s painful Champions League final defeat against Chelsea still fresh in the memory.
City have breezed through the group stages of the tournament throughout the last decade and will once again be among the top seeds for this draw.
The draw for the group stage will take place in Istanbul on Thursday 26 August at 5pm BST and will be available to watch in the UK on BT Sport.
Under UEFA rules, a side cannot be drawn against another team from the same country, so that rules out both Liverpool and Manchester United from Pot 2.
That still leaves a formidable list of clubs from that pot including El Clasico duo Real Madrid and Barcelona - neither of whom have their strongest ever teams but who both remain formidable opponents.
It is Paris Saint-Germain who remain the toughest opponents in that pot, with the beaten 2020 finalists and having been ousted by City at the last four stage last season and having added a host of stars including Lionel Messi - they are to be avoided at all costs.
That leaves Juventus - another club who have had a slight dip in recent seasons but who remain a tough opponent - and knockout regulars Sevilla and Borussia Dortmund.
Neither of those sides are ideal opponents but having beaten Dortmund in each leg of their quarter final tie last year and with Jadon Sancho gone, City would believe they are the best of a list of bad options.
Due to the final qualification matches for the group stages taking place this week, the final makeups of pots three and four have yet to be finalised.
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There are a number of big hitters in pot three too - the two clubs to avoid are RB Leipzig and Atalanta, who have both become regulars in the knockout stages in recent years and who finished runners up in Germany and Italy respectively last campaign.
Portuguese giants Porto and Dutch club Ajax would be kinder draws but City would probably prefer Russian club Zenit Saint Petersburg as the ideal team from that pot.
Milan are back in the Champions League after a six-year absence and they are the team that everyone will want to avoid from pot four (although they cannot be drawn in the same group as Atalanta, who are a dangerous pot three side).
Belgian side Club Brugge and Bundesliga outfit Wolfsburg are the only other confirmed sides in pot four, while one of Young Boys or Ferencvaros and the winners of Ludogorets or Malmo will also definitely be in that section.
Man City’s best possible draw
Man City
Borussia Dortmund
Zenit Saint Petersburg
Sheriff Tiraspol
Man City’s worst possible draw
Man City
Paris Saint-Germain
RB Leipzig
Milan
Champions League pots in full
Pot 1: Chelsea, Villarreal, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Lille, Sporting Lisbon.
Pot 2: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool, Sevilla, Borussia Dortmund.
Pot 3: Porto, Ajax, RB Leipzig, Atalanta, Zenit Saint Petersburg.
Pot 4: Club Brugge, Young Boys or Ferencvaros, AC Milan, Ludogorets or Malmo, Wolfsburg.
Pot 3 or 4: Shakhtar Donetsk or Monaco, RB Salzburg or Brondby, Benfica or PSV, Besiktas, Dynamo Kyiv, Dinamo Zagreb or Sheriff Tiraspol.
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