After UEFA revamped their Champions League pot placement by putting all the league champions on Pot 1, there was some additional drama to be expected. Traditional powerhouse clubs like Real Madrid and Manchester United were in Pot 2 while PSV and Zenit were in Pot 1. Despite all the changes, the Chelsea FC Champions League draw is a fairly good one for the club despite the insane amount of travel the Blues must make.
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Joining the Blues in Group G are FC Porto, Dynamo Kiev, and Maccabi Tel Aviv. If you know your geography or at least if you know where these clubs are located, the Blues itinerary will include trips to Portugal and the faraway lands of Ukraine and Israel. According to Wall Street Journal and ESPN contributor Jake Cohen, Chelsea FC will be traveling nearly double the distance of most of their Premier League rivals in the competition.
Distance PL clubs will travel during CL group stage (miles)
— Jake Cohen (@JakeFCohen) August 27, 2015
Chelsea: 9,184
Arsenal: 5,894
Manchester United: 5,452
Manchester City: 4,842
While the travel to face opponents that are clearly inferior may not impact the squad all that much, it will be the travel back and the dates with Premier League opponents following those matches. Our very own staff writer Daniel Childs took the opportunity to note which league matches will be taking place before and after our Champions League matches.
We do not know the dates of each match just yet but taking a quick look at the opponents list and they all seem like managable fixtures. The only potential top four opponent is Arsenal and Chelsea gets the pleasure of hosting them at Stamford Bridge.
EPL Games after UCL Group Games:
— Daniel Childs ☕️ (@SonOfChelsea) August 27, 2015
Arsenal H
Saints H
West Ham A
Stoke A
Spurs A
Leicester A #CFC
While some Chelsea fans wanted to face Real Madrid, perhaps to stick it to Rafa Benitez, this draw is perfectly acceptable. While we hope for big-time clashes in Europe’s premier footballing competition, conventional wisdom suggests that an easier draw in the group stages is preferable. We can watch the other big time matches in other groups such as Barcelona vs. Roma, Manchester City vs. Juventus, and Real Madrid vs. PSG comfortable in the knowledge that we can only face those powerhouse clubs in the knockout stages.
As we all know, the Champions League is a crapshoot and anything can happen on a cold night in Ukraine or a humid evening in Israel but on paper, the Chelsea FC Champions League draw is one of the best outcomes we could have asked for.
Full Groups Below:
Group A: PSG, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Malmo FF
Group B: PSV, Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Wolfsburg
Group C: Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray, Astana
Group D: Juventus, Manchester City, Sevilla, Borussia Monchengladbach
Group E: FC Barcelona, Bayern Leverkusen, AS Roma, BATE Borisov
Group F: Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Olympiacos, Dynamo Zagreb
Group G: Chelsea FC, FC Porto, Dynamo Kiev, Maccabi Tel Aviv
Group H: Zenit, Valencia, Lyon, Gent
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