2014–15 UEFA Champions League group stage

The **group stage** of the **2014–15 UEFA Champions League** will be played from 16 September to 10 December 2014. A total of 32 teams compete in the group stage.

## Draw

The draw will be held on 28 August 2014 at Monaco. The 32 teams are allocated into four pots based on their UEFA club coefficients at the beginning of the season, with the title holders being placed in Pot 1 automatically. They are drawn into eight groups of four containing one team from each of the four seeding pots, with the restriction that teams from the same national association cannot be drawn against each other. Moreover, the draw is controlled for teams from the same association in order to split the teams evenly into the two sets of groups (A–D, E–H) for maximum television coverage.

The fixtures are decided after the draw. On each matchday, four groups play their matches on Tuesday, while the other four groups play their matches on Wednesday, with the two sets of groups (A–D, E–H) alternating between each matchday. There are other restrictions, e.g., teams from the same city (e.g., Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid) in general do not play at home on the same matchday (UEFA tries to avoid teams from the same city playing at home on the same day or on consecutive days), and Russian teams do not play at home on the last matchday due to cold weather.

## Teams

Below are the 32 teams which qualified for the group stage (with their 2014 UEFA club coefficients), grouped by their seeding pot. They include 22 teams which enter in this stage, and the 10 winners of the play-off round (5 in Champions Route, 5 in League Route).

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Possible entrants

Play-off round (Champions Route)
 Template:Flagicon Red Bull Salzburg | 46.185
 Template:Flagicon APOEL | 37.650
 Template:Flagicon Steaua București | 39.451
 Template:Flagicon BATE Borisov | 33.725

Play-off round (League Route)
 Template:Flagicon Zenit Saint Petersburg | 73.899
 Template:Flagicon Bayer Leverkusen | 70.328
 Template:Flagicon Porto | 105.459
 Template:Flagicon Napoli | 61.387

## Format

In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 16, while the third-placed teams enter the Europa League round of 32.

### Tiebreakers

The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:

1. higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
2. superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question;
3. higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question;
4. higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question;
5. If, after applying criteria 1 to 4 to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 4 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 6 to 8 apply;
6. superior goal difference from all group matches played;
7. higher number of goals scored from all group matches played;
8. higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.

## Groups

The matchdays are 16–17 September, 30 September–1 October, 21–22 October, 4–5 November, 25–26 November, and 9–10 December 2014. The match kickoff times are 20:45 CEST/CET, except for matches in Russia which are 18:00 CEST/CET. Times up to 25 October 2014 (matchdays 1–3) are CEST (UTC+2), thereafter (matchdays 4–6) times are CET (UTC+1).

## External links

* UEFA Champions League (official website)

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