Today’s Champions League draw: who could Man United face in the group stages | OneFootball

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After an absence of two seasons, Manchester United will finally be back in the Champions League.

The Red Devils, under Michael Carrick, finished the season excellently and qualified for Europe’s premier competition after finishing third in the league.

Supporters of the club will be keeping a keen eye on this evening’s draw to see which teams they will face in the league stage of the competition.

They will be particularly excited after having no European football at all to look forward to last season.

Who can United face?

The Red Devils have never competed in the Champions League in the new format, as they were still in groups of four teams in 2023/2024. Nonetheless, they did play the new league phase in the 2024/2025 Europa League campaign.

United will be drawn from Pot 2, but unlike the old Champions League format, that does not mean they avoid the other Pot 2 teams. United will play eight different opponents: two from each pot, with one home and one away opponent from each pot.

Michael Carrick’s side can play any team except other English teams at this stage, so Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Aston Villa are excluded. In addition, they cannot face more than two clubs from a particular foreign association. For example, they cannot face three Spanish or German sides in the league phase.

Here is what the pool looks like:

Therefore, United will have to play two of Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Barcelona or Atlético Madrid, ensuring two gigantic battles on the European stage.

Following the previous rule, if United were to draw two Spanish sides in pot one, they could not play any side from this nation in later pots, such as Real Betis or Villarreal.

As a result, United could have a very complicated draw such as Bayern, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Roma, Napoli, Red Bull Leipzig, Stuttgart and Como.

On the other hand, they could have a much easier set of fixtures on paper, such as PSG, Atlético, Club Brugge, PSV, Bodø/Glimt, Shakhtar, Sabah and Slovan Bratislava.

Were United to finish in the top eight after eight matches, they would progress directly to the last 16. Should they finish between 9th-24th, they would then enter a last 32 match.

To follow the exciting draw, you can tune in from 17:00 BST.