2020–21 UEFA Champions League group stage


The 2020–21 UEFA Champions League group stage began on 20 October 2020 and ended on 9 December 2020. A total of 32 teams competed in the group stage to decide the 16 places in the knockout phase of the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League.
Krasnodar, Midtjylland, İstanbul Başakşehir and Rennes made their debut appearances in the group stage. Istanbul became the first city to provide four different participating teams in the group stage. This group stage was also the first in Champions League history to include three Russian teams.

Draw

The draw was held at the RTS Studios in Geneva, Switzerland on 1 October 2020 at 17:00 CEST.
The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on the following principles :
  • Pot 1 contained the Champions League and Europa League title holders, and the champions of the top six associations based on their 2019 UEFA country coefficients. As the Champions League title holders, Bayern Munich, were also the champions of their association, the champions of the next highest ranked association, Portugal, were also seeded into Pot 1.
  • Pots 2, 3 and 4 contained the remaining teams, seeded based on their 2020 UEFA club coefficients.
On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries.
Moreover, for associations with two or more teams, teams were paired in order to split them into two sets of four groups for maximum television coverage. The following pairings were announced by UEFA after the group stage teams were confirmed:
On each matchday, one set of four groups played their matches on Tuesday, while the other set of four groups played their matches on Wednesday, with the two sets of groups alternating between each matchday. The fixtures were decided after the draw, using a computer draw not shown to public, with the following match sequence :
MatchdayDates
Matchday 120–21 October 2020
Matchday 227–28 October 2020
Matchday 33–4 November 2020
Matchday 424–25 November 2020
Matchday 51–2 December 2020
Matchday 68–9 December 2020

There were scheduling restrictions: for example, teams from the same city in general were not scheduled to play at home on the same matchday, and teams from "winter countries" were not scheduled to play at home on the last matchday.

Teams

Below were the participating teams, grouped by their seeding pot. They included:
Key to colours
Group winners and runners-up advanced to round of 16
Third-placed teams entered Europa League round of 32


'''Notes'''

Format

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

Tiebreakers

Teams were ranked according to points. If two or more teams were tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :
  1. Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
  4. Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
  5. If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
  6. Goal difference in all group matches;
  7. Goals scored in all group matches;
  8. Away goals scored in all group matches;
  9. Wins in all group matches;
  10. Away wins in all group matches;
  11. Disciplinary points ;
  12. UEFA club coefficient.

Groups

The matchdays were 20–21 October, 27–28 October, 3–4 November, 24–25 November, 1–2 December, and 8–9 December 2020. The scheduled kickoff times were 21:00 CET/CEST, with two matches on each Tuesday and Wednesday scheduled for 18:55 CET/CEST.
Times were CET/CEST, as listed by UEFA.

Group A


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Group B


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Group C


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Group D


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Group E


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Group F


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Group G


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Group H


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