2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage

The 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage began on 18 September and ended on 12 December 2018.^[1] A total of 32 teams competed in the group stage to decide the 16 places in the knockout phase of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League.^[2]

The draw for the group stage was held on 30 August 2018, 18:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.^[3]

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 (Regulations Article 13.06):^[2]

• Pot 1 contained the Champions League title holders, the Europa League title holders, and the champions of the top six associations based on their 2017 UEFA country coefficients.^[4] If either the Champions League or Europa League title holders were one of the champions of the top six associations, the champions of the association ranked seventh (and possibly eighth) were also seeded into Pot 1.
• Pot 2, 3 and 4 contained the remaining teams, seeded based on their 2018 UEFA club coefficients.^[5]

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.^[6]

Moreover, the draw was controlled for teams from the same association in order to split the teams evenly into the two sets of four groups (A–D, E–H) for maximum television coverage. 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 following pairings were announced by UEFA after the group stage teams were confirmed:^[3][7]

The fixtures were decided after the draw, using a computer draw not shown to public, with the following match sequence (Regulations Article 16.02):^[2]

Note: Positions for scheduling do not use the seeding pots, e.g. Team 1 is not necessarily the team from Pot 1 in the draw.

Group stage schedule

Matchday	Dates	Matches
Matchday 1	18–19 September 2018	2 v 3, 4 v 1
Matchday 2	2–3 October 2018	1 v 2, 3 v 4
Matchday 3	23–24 October 2018	3 v 1, 2 v 4
Matchday 4	6–7 November 2018	1 v 3, 4 v 2
Matchday 5	27–28 November 2018	3 v 2, 1 v 4
Matchday 6	11–12 December 2018	2 v 1, 4 v 3

There were scheduling restrictions: for example, teams from the same city (e.g. Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid) in general were not scheduled to play at home on the same matchday (to avoid them playing at home on the same day or on consecutive days, due to logistics and crowd control), and teams from "winter countries" (e.g. Russia) were not scheduled to play at home on the last matchday (due to cold weather).

Below were the participating teams (with their 2018 UEFA club coefficients),^[5] grouped by their seeding pot. They included:

• 26 teams which entered in this stage
• 6 winners of the play-off round (4 from Champions Path, 2 from League Path)

Key to colours
Group winners and runners-up advanced to round of 16
Third-placed teams entered Europa League round of 32

Pot 1 (by association rank)[4] Assoc. Team Coeff.[5] TH Real Madrid 162.000 EL Atlético Madrid 140.000 1 Barcelona 132.000 2 Bayern Munich 135.000 3 Manchester City 100.000 4 Juventus 126.000 5 Paris Saint-Germain 109.000 6 Lokomotiv Moscow 22.500

Pot 2 Team Notes Coeff.[5] Borussia Dortmund 89.000 Porto 86.000 Manchester United 82.000 Shakhtar Donetsk 81.000 Benfica [LP] 80.000 Napoli 78.000 Tottenham Hotspur 67.000 Roma 64.000

Pot 3 Team Notes Coeff.[5] Liverpool 62.000 Schalke 04 62.000 Lyon 59.500 Monaco 57.000 Ajax [LP] 53.500 CSKA Moscow 45.000 PSV Eindhoven [CP] 36.000 Valencia 36.000

Pot 4 Team Notes Coeff.[5] Viktoria Plzeň 33.000 Club Brugge 29.500 Galatasaray 29.500 Young Boys [CP] 20.500 Inter Milan 16.000 TSG Hoffenheim 14.285 Red Star Belgrade [CP] 10.750 AEK Athens [CP] 10.000

Notes

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.

Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 17.01):^[2]

1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
4. Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
5. If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above was 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 (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
12. UEFA club coefficient.

The matchdays were 18–19 September, 2–3 October, 23–24 October, 6–7 November, 27–28 November, and 11–12 December 2018.^[1] The scheduled kickoff times were 21:00 CET/CEST, with two matches on each Tuesday and Wednesday scheduled for 18:55 CET/CEST.^[8]

Times are CET/CEST,^{[note 1]} as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		DOR	ATM	BRU	MON
1	Borussia Dortmund	6	4	1	1	10	2	+8	13[a]	Advance to knockout phase		—	4–0	0–0	3–0
2	Atlético Madrid	6	4	1	1	9	6	+3	13[a]			2–0	—	3–1	2–0
3	Club Brugge	6	1	3	2	6	5	+1	6	Transfer to Europa League		0–1	0–0	—	1–1
4	Monaco	6	0	1	5	2	14	−12	1			0–2	1–2	0–4	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		BAR	TOT	INT	PSV
1	Barcelona	6	4	2	0	14	5	+9	14	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–1	2–0	4–0
2	Tottenham Hotspur	6	2	2	2	9	10	−1	8[a]			2–4	—	1–0	2–1
3	Inter Milan	6	2	2	2	6	7	−1	8[a]	Transfer to Europa League		1–1	2–1	—	1–1
4	PSV Eindhoven	6	0	2	4	6	13	−7	2			1–2	2–2	1–2	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		PAR	LIV	NAP	RSB
1	Paris Saint-Germain	6	3	2	1	17	9	+8	11	Advance to knockout phase		—	2–1	2–2	6–1
2	Liverpool	6	3	0	3	9	7	+2	9[a]			3–2	—	1–0	4–0
3	Napoli	6	2	3	1	7	5	+2	9[a]	Transfer to Europa League		1–1	1–0	—	3–1
4	Red Star Belgrade	6	1	1	4	5	17	−12	4			1–4	2–0	0–0	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		POR	SCH	GAL	LMO
1	Porto	6	5	1	0	15	6	+9	16	Advance to knockout phase		—	3–1	1–0	4–1
2	Schalke 04	6	3	2	1	6	4	+2	11			1–1	—	2–0	1–0
3	Galatasaray	6	1	1	4	5	8	−3	4	Transfer to Europa League		2–3	0–0	—	3–0
4	Lokomotiv Moscow	6	1	0	5	4	12	−8	3			1–3	0–1	2–0	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		BAY	AJX	BEN	AEK
1	Bayern Munich	6	4	2	0	15	5	+10	14	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–1	5–1	2–0
2	Ajax	6	3	3	0	11	5	+6	12			3–3	—	1–0	3–0
3	Benfica	6	2	1	3	6	11	−5	7	Transfer to Europa League		0–2	1–1	—	1–0
4	AEK Athens	6	0	0	6	2	13	−11	0			0–2	0–2	2–3	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		MCI	LYO	SHK	HOF
1	Manchester City	6	4	1	1	16	6	+10	13	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–2	6–0	2–1
2	Lyon	6	1	5	0	12	11	+1	8			2–2	—	2–2	2–2
3	Shakhtar Donetsk	6	1	3	2	8	16	−8	6	Transfer to Europa League		0–3	1–1	—	2–2
4	TSG Hoffenheim	6	0	3	3	11	14	−3	3			1–2	3–3	2–3	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		RMA	ROM	PLZ	CSKA
1	Real Madrid	6	4	0	2	12	5	+7	12	Advance to knockout phase		—	3–0	2–1	0–3
2	Roma	6	3	0	3	11	8	+3	9			0–2	—	5–0	3–0
3	Viktoria Plzeň	6	2	1	3	7	16	−9	7[a]	Transfer to Europa League		0–5	2–1	—	2–2
4	CSKA Moscow	6	2	1	3	8	9	−1	7[a]			1–0	1–2	1–2	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		JUV	MUN	VAL	YB
1	Juventus	6	4	0	2	9	4	+5	12	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–2	1–0	3–0
2	Manchester United	6	3	1	2	7	4	+3	10			0–1	—	0–0	1–0
3	Valencia	6	2	2	2	6	6	0	8	Transfer to Europa League		0–2	2–1	—	3–1
4	Young Boys	6	1	1	4	4	12	−8	4			2–1	0–3	1–1	—

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