The 2015–16 UEFA Champions League group stage began on 15 September and ended on 9 December 2015. A total of 32 teams competed in the group stage to decide the 16 places in the
knockout phase of the
2015–16 UEFA Champions League
The 2015–16 UEFA Champions League was the 61st season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 24th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. Barcelona wer ...
.
Draw
The draw was held on 27 August 2015, 17:45
CEST, at the
Grimaldi Forum
The Grimaldi Forum in Monaco is a conference and congress centre located on the seafront of Monaco's eastern beach quartier, Larvotto. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra regularly perform there. This is also th ...
in
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
.
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 (introduced starting this season):
*Pot 1 contained the title holders and the champions of the top seven associations based on their 2014
UEFA country coefficients.
As the title holders (Barcelona) were one of the champions of the top seven associations, the champions of the association ranked eighth were also seeded into Pot 1 (regulations Article 13.05).
*Pots 2, 3 and 4 contained the remaining teams, seeded based on their 2015
UEFA club coefficients.
Moreover, the draw was controlled for teams from the same association in order to split the teams evenly into the two sets of groups (A–D, E–H) for maximum television coverage.
The fixtures were decided after the draw. On each matchday, four groups play their matches on Tuesday, while the other four groups play their matches on Wednesday, with the two sets of groups (A–D, E–H) alternating between each matchday. There are other restrictions: for example, teams from the same city (e.g.,
Real Madrid
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid.
Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...
and
Atlético Madrid
Club Atlético de Madrid, S.A.D. (; meaning "Athletic Club of Madrid"), known simply as Atleti in the Spanish-speaking world and commonly referred to at international level as Atlético Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based i ...
,
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
and
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostl ...
,
Manchester City
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
and
Manchester United
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
) in general do not play at home on the same matchday (UEFA tries to avoid teams from the same city playing at home on the same day or on consecutive days, due to logistics and crowd control), and teams in certain countries (e.g., Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan) do not play at home on the last matchday (due to cold weather and simultaneous kick-off times).
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
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
between the countries. Therefore, Ukrainian clubs
Shakhtar Donetsk
Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk ( uk, Футбольний клуб «Шахтар» Донецьк , short nickname "miners") is a Ukrainian professional football club from the city of Donetsk. In 2014, due to the War in Donbass, the club was f ...
and
Dynamo Kyiv (both Pot 3) and Russian clubs
Zenit Saint Petersburg
Football Club Zenit (russian: link=no, Футбольный клуб «Зенит» ), also known as Zenit Saint Petersburg or simply Zenit, is a Russian professional football club based in Saint Petersburg. Founded in 1925 (or in 1914, acco ...
(Pot 1) and
CSKA Moscow
CSKA Moscow (russian: ЦСКА Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. It was created in 1911 in the Russian Empire on base of OLLS (Skiing Society, founded 1901). Later, during the Soviet era, it was a central piece of the big So ...
(Pot 3) could not be drawn into the same group.
Teams
Below are the 32 teams which qualified for the group stage (with their 2015
UEFA club coefficient
In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments, and after applied in wome ...
s),
grouped by their seeding pot. They include 22 teams which enter in this stage, and the 10 winners of the
play-off round
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
(5 in Champions Route, 5 in League Route).
;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
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...
, while the third-placed teams entered the
Europa League round of 32.
Tiebreakers
The teams are ranked according to
points
Point or points may refer to:
Places
* Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland
* Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States
* Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland
* Points ...
(3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied in the order given to determine the rankings (regulations Article 17.01):
#higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
#superior
goal difference
Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches a ...
from the group matches played among the teams in question;
#higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question;
#higher number of
goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question;
#if, after having applied criteria 1 to 4, teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 4 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 6 to 12 apply;
#superior goal difference in all group matches;
#higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
#higher number of away goals scored in all group matches;
#higher number of wins in all group matches;
#higher number of away wins in all group matches;
#lower disciplinary points total based only on yellow and red cards received in all group matches (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
#higher
club coefficient.
Groups
The matchdays are 15–16 September, 29–30 September, 20–21 October, 3–4 November, 24–25 November, and 8–9 December 2015. The match kickoff times are 20:45 CEST/CET, except for matchday 5 in
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
and matchday 2 in
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
which are 18:00 CEST/CET, and matchdays 4 and 5 in Kazakhstan which are 16:00 CET.
Times are
CET/
CEST, as listed by UEFA (local times are in parentheses).
Group A
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;Notes
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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;Notes
Group H
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Notes
References
External links
2015–16 UEFA Champions League
{{DEFAULTSORT:2015-16 Uefa Champions League Group Stage
Group Stage
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...
2015-16