They’re almost certain to be in pot 3.
Liverpool suffered the ultimate heartbreak last season as they lost the Champions League final to Real Madrid. Their fate was sealed by star player Mohamed Salah going off injured and goalkeeper Loris Karius making two horrendous mistakes.
And their streak of bad luck is set to continue, as they look set to be placed in pot 3 of the Champions League draw, despite reaching last season’s final.
If all the highest ranked teams make it through their qualifying games, Liverpool will be in pot 3, but a few upsets could lift them up to pot 2. Liverpool’s fourth-place finish in the Premier League puts them into pot three, while Tottenham Hotspur, who finished above them in third last season, look set to be in pot 2.
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This means that Jurgen Klopp’s team will almost certainly end up in the group of death, unless by some stroke of luck they managed to be drawn in the same group as Lokomotiv Moscow (Pot 1, I know, madness), Shakhtar Donetsk and FK Astana.
That’d be their ‘easiest’ draw on paper, while the toughest draw would look something like: Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan.
The provisional four pots for the Champions League draw, based on the Liverpool Echo’s predicted results are as follows
Pot 1: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Lokomotiv Moscow
Pot 2: Borussia Dortmund, FC Porto, Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Benfica, Napoli, Tottenham Hotspur, Roma
Pot 3: Liverpool, Dinamo Kiev, Schalke, Lyon, Monaco, Salzburg, CSKA Moscow, PSV Eindhoven
Pot 4: Valencia, Viktoria Plzen, Celtic, Club Brugge, Galatasaray, FK Astana, Inter Milan, Hoffenheim.
This is all based on what is expected to happen, which could be a naive prediction, but Champions League qualifiers rarely see a lot of upsets.
A group of death wouldn’t be ideal for Liverpool, but they had no problem beating Manchester City and Roma last season. They will not fear anyone going into this Champions League campaign.
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