UEFA Champions League 18/19: Everything you should know before Thursday's Draw

Pot 3

OL Lyon and AS Monaco have battled many a time before, but won't be in the same group this year.

Pot 3 consist of some very entertaining teams. French clubs Monaco and Lyon, who are known names in the Champions League, German club FC Schalke 04, Marcelino's Los Che and Russian club CSKA Moscow will all be drawn into different groups from this pot.

Domenico Tedesco is on a mission to rebuild Schalke after seeing many of their star players leave the club for free, while both Monaco and Lyon are looking to be the first French club to lift this prestigious title. Moscow manager Viktor Goncharenko would be looking forward to the new season even though World Cup star Aleksandr Golovin left the club for Monaco.

Pot 3 for the UEFA Champions League group stage draw

Spanish club Valencia CF and Czech winners Viktoria Plzen have been highlighted in Blue above because both those clubs can either be in Pot 3 or Pot 4 based on the playoff's outcome and the distribution of teams in each group. Like Liverpool, both clubs are, however, guaranteed a spot in the group stage of the league.

Meanwhile, Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam and Ukrainian club Dynamo Kyiv have been highlighted in red because they are currently contesting in the playoffs to secure a position in the group stage.

In their first playoff game, Ajax thumped Dynamo 3 - 1, with goals scored by Hakim Ziyech and Dusan Tadic at the Johan Cruyff Arena. The winner of this playoff round on aggregate is expected to join Pot 3.

Note that the decision on which Pot the playoff winners go to are not finalized, and so either the winner of PSV Eindhoven ( 🇳🇱) vs. BATE Borisov ( 🇧🇾) or the winner of Red Bull Salzburg ( 🇦🇹) vs. Red Star Belgrade ( 🇷🇸) could also join Pot 3.