CL draw

[FEPG]

Pot 1
Barcelona
Chelsea
Bayern
Juventus
Benfica
PSG
Zenit
PSV

Pot 2
Real Madrid
Atlético
Porto
Arsenal
Man United
Valencia
Leverkusen
Man City

Pot 3
Shakhtar
Sevilla
Lyon
Dynamo Kyiv
Olympiakos
CSKA
Galatasaray
Roma

Pot 4
BATE
Mönchengladbach
Wolfsburg
Dinamo Zagreb
Maccabi TA
Gent
Malmö
Astana

The draw is tomorrow, August 27th 17:45CET in Monaco.

Considering the champions of the top-8 countries are in the first pot now, it's basically as if both top pots were merged into one as they are now roughly of the same strength. To add a spoonful of tar for Zenit & PSV, I'd like them to draw teams from the top-4 countries: Zenit-Man City-Sevilla-Mönchengladback & PSV-Man Utd-Roma-Wolfsburg will do. It would be interesting to see whether these teams really deserve being in the 1st pot as UEFA make everyone believe.

One may also want to check out the draw simulation (only guaranteed to work in the latest Chrome, Opera & Firefox releases). I'm not sure about the pairings (& whether they are still used in CL draws as I've been out of European football for a couple of years), so I paired teams from the same countries up almost randomly. If someone has that information, they may submit a pull request with a fix.

[Zippy]

hmm i got

Juventus, Real Madrid, LYON, Gent
PARIS SG, Porto, Dinamo Kiev and Wolfsburg

[mieszambeton]

this draw simulation is nice thing!

[JohnHarts]

The draw simulator unfortunately doesn't work for me. It insists I update my browser, which is already up to date. I'd guess TV pairings would be:

Chelsea/Arsenal
Man U/Manchester C
Juventus/Roma
Munich/Leverkusen
Wolfsburg/Monchen
Benfica/Porto
PSG/Lyon
CSKA/Zenit
Shaktar/Kiev

Not sure how they handle the Spanish teams. It would make most sense to have Barca&Atletico / R Madrid then Valencia/Sevilla, but if a "triple pairing" isn't possible then Barca/Real and Valencia/Atletico, with Seville unpaired.

Are Russian and Ukrainian teams still banned from being drawn together? That would make things tricky if so.

[bugylibicska]

For Shakhtar to survive the group stage from pot 3 they better draw PSV from pot 1 (maybe Benfica, but they`re not lucky against teams from Portugal) and avoid the Germans from pot 4 (pot 2 teams are all strong or very strong). Same applies to Dynamo Kyiv and CSKA. Maybe one of them will be lucky, if not - well, just enjoy the ride! Of course BATE and Astana have no chance, but just to be here is a huge success, so I wish them the teams they`d wish for themselves.

[FEPG]

The draw simulator unfortunately doesn't work for me. It insists I update my browser, which is already up to date.

Written in TypeScript & transpiled into JavaScript, it heavily relies on the recently introduced features like Promises & the fetch API. It works in the latest Chrome & Firefox browsers (& likely in Opera, too). I did not intend it to work in any of the Microsoft browsers (IE & the new 'modern' Edge thingy) or Safari as none of them support the latter feature. I'm quite lazy & reluctant to fix it by myself but if someone is willing to add the polyfills (the standard one for the fetch API does not seem to work), it would be appreciated.

[og2002gr]

Nice tool Kaiser!

My simulation gave an evil group with: 1. PSG / 2. Atlético Madrid / 3. Roma / 4. Wolfsburg and a heaven one with: 1. Zenit / 2. Arsenal / 3. Olympiacos / 4. Gent

I hope tomorrow draw will give balanced groups. I wouldn't like some groups being like a Final4 and some others being of EL level.

[JohnHarts]

The draw simulator unfortunately doesn't work for me. It insists I update my browser, which is already up to date.

Written in TypeScript & transpiled into JavaScript, it heavily relies on the recently introduced features like Promises & the fetch API. It works in the latest Chrome & Firefox browsers (& likely in Opera, too). I did not intend it to work in any of the Microsoft browsers (IE & the new 'modern' Edge thingy) or Safari as none of them support the latter feature. I'm quite lazy & reluctant to fix it by myself but if someone is willing to add the polyfills (the standard one for the fetch API does not seem to work), it would be appreciated.

Got it working in chrome, very nice!

But can Russian and Ukraine teams be drawn together?

[JohnHarts]

I got a group of death Barca, Man C, Shaktar, Wolfsburg and an easy group Zenit, Porto, Olympiakos, BATE. Will be an interesting, if somewhat unbalanced draw.

[fillow]

Mock draw: We've never met before
(as usual, impossible for a few pairs, but I tried)

PSV Eindhoven
Real Madrid
Shakhtar Donetsk
Malmo

Zenit
Arsenal
Lyon
Wolfsburg

Paris Saint-Germain
Manchester United
Roma
Borussia Monchengladbach

Bayern Munchen
Porto
Galatasaray
Gent

Barcelona
Manchester City
Olympiacos
Astana

Chelsea
Atletico Madrid
Dynamo Kyiv
BATE

Benfica
Valencia
CSKA Moscow
Maccabi Tel Aviv

Juventus
Bayer Leverkusen
Sevilla
Dinamo Zagreb

tomorrow: will do the same for EL

[CaptainMeerkat]

As far as I am aware, Ukraine and Russian teams must be separated - the simulator allows them to be in the same group.

Also, it allows CSKA Moscow to be in any group without Zenit - they must be drawn into the groups opposite Zenit.

Besides that, very good job

EDIT: There also appears to be a sub group - Barca/Benfica/Cheslea/Munich. 2 must go into the red groups, 2 into the blue. This is correct and something to bear in mind during the draw!

[FEPG]

As far as I am aware, Ukraine and Russian teams must be separated - the simulator allows them to be in the same group.

The easiest way to fix that is - ironically - to put them into a single imaginary country. I will not fix that as it requires adding a dozen of lines to the parser which I deem unnecessary. Besides, there hasn't been an official statement from UEFA concerning this, has there?

Also, it allows CSKA Moscow to be in any group without Zenit - they must be drawn into the groups opposite Zenit.

The JSON file with pairings was created before the playoffs & I forgot to update it after today's matches. It's up to date now.

Besides that, very good job

Thanks. I honestly didn't expect this tiny thingy I made for myself to play with (sometimes when I'm alone) to grab so much attention. What is especially flattering is that you registered an account just to say this.

EDIT: There also appears to be a sub group - Barca/Benfica/Cheslea/Munich. 2 must go into the red groups, 2 into the blue. This is correct and something to bear in mind during the draw!

Mind elaborating more on this? Does that mean those teams should be paired up with each other, as well? I seem to have missed out on a lot over these years.

[CaptainMeerkat]

EDIT: There also appears to be a sub group - Barca/Benfica/Cheslea/Munich. 2 must go into the red groups, 2 into the blue. This is correct and something to bear in mind during the draw!

Mind elaborating more on this? Does that mean those teams should be paired with each other, as well? I seem to have missed out on a lot over these years.

No, nothing needs changing in this regard. It is just an observation I have noted doing a few simulations. Your programme manages it perfectly.

But to elaborate why it occurs: Each of these teams are paired with a pot 2 team. This coupled with that 4 pot 2 teams are paired with each other, necessitates that only 2 of Barca/Chelsea/Munich/Benfica can in in the same colour group.

Example, If Barca, Chelsea and Munich are allocated a red group. It means that there are 5 teams that cannot go into a red group - Real, Arsenal, Leverkusen, Atletico/Valencia and Man Utd/Man City. It is impossible to place them all into a blue group, hence the need for the computer/programme to split these teams evenly.

When I first noted this, I was bamboozled!!! But would some paper and a pen, took me a while to figure out why.

[FEPG]

No, nothing needs changing in this regard. It is just an observation I have noted doing a few simulations. Your programme manages it perfectly.

But to elaborate why it occurs: Each of these teams are paired with a pot 2 team. This coupled with that 4 pot 2 teams are paired with each other, necessitates that only 2 of Barca/Chelsea/Munich/Benfica can in in the same colour group.

Example, If Barca, Chelsea and Munich are allocated a red group. It means that there are 5 teams that cannot go into a red group - Real, Arsenal, Leverkusen, Atletico/Valencia and Man Utd/Man City. It is impossible to place them all into a blue group, hence the need for the computer/programme to split these teams evenly.

When I first noted this, I was bamboozled!!! But would some paper and a pen, took me a while to figure out why.

I see what you mean. At first, I thought it was a bug when the program (obviously, as it seemed to me) would miss some of the possible groups for a particular team here & there when balls are drawn out of the first pot. It uses the DFS algorithm under the hood & I had no luck finding where it was failing, so I just turned a blind eye to it hoping no one would notice. It's great that someone yet did & reasoned my fears away.

[bugylibicska]

@fillow
PSV Eindhoven
Real Madrid
Shakhtar Donetsk
Malmo

That would be the dream draw for Shakhtar. PSV (the only good draw from pot 1), Real Madrid (they`ve never met and Real probably going to collect 6 wins), Malmo (not as strong as the Germans, but strong enough to take off points from PSV). 7 points could be enough for 2nd spot.