Champions League winners Barcelona will begin their title defence against AC Milan, BATE Borisov of Belarus and Czech newcomers Viktoria Plzen after UEFA conducted the group stage draw yesterday.
Four-time winners Barcelona’s stellar fixtures with the seven-time champions — a rematch of the 1994 final which Milan won 4-0 — will also send forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic back to the Nou Camp, where he was harshly judged to be an expensive failure two seasons ago.
Manchester United, last season’s runners-up, are top-seeded with Benfica, Switzerland’s FC Basel and Romanian newcomers Otelul Galati. Man United beat Benfica when they won their first title in 1968.
Bayern Munich, whose stadium will stage the final next May, got a tough group with Villarreal, big spenders Manchester City and Napoli.
Real Madrid, the nine-time European champions, face Lyon, four-time winners Ajax and Dinamo Zagreb.
Inter, the 2010 winners, are top-seeded in a group with CSKA Moscow, Lille and Trabzonspor. The Turkish club already lost to Benfica in the qualifying rounds but was reprieved by UEFA less than 24 hours before the draw when Turkey’s federation barred title-winning Fenerbahce while they are being investigated in a match-fixing scandal.
Arsenal were rewarded for a tense passage through the play-off round with a group including Marseille, Olympiakos of Greece and Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund, the No. 4 seed all teams wished to avoid.
Chelsea will face Valencia having just bought the Spanish club’s star forward Juan Mata. Group E is completed by Bayer Leverkusen and Belgian champions Genk.
Two-time winners FC Porto face long trips to Group G rivals Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine and Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg. APOEL of Cyprus complete the group.
Each team plays six matches in a programme scheduled from 13 September through to 7 December.
The top two teams in each group advance to the knock-out rounds starting in February, and the eight third-placed teams join the Europa League competition in its knockout phase.
The 32 teams are set to share €754 million ($1.09 billion) in prize money and bonuses distributed by UEFA.