How UEFA league draws are planned.

Ten play-off winners joined the 22
automatic entrants in the group
stage draw at the Grimaldi Forum,
Monaco, where the 32 sides were
split into four seeding pots and one
from each drawn into the eight
groups. Seeds were based on
UEFA's coefficient system and no
team could have met another from
the same association.
Where two sides from the same
association qualified, they were
paired to split their matches
between Tuesday and Wednesday,
so one club will always play at
home on one day and the other will
play away on the other day. In the
case of associations with three
representatives, only two teams
were paired in terms of their
fixtures; in the case of associations
with four representatives, two
pairings were made based on the
TV audience.
To ensure sides from the same
country play on separate days, the
eight groups were distinguished by
colour: Groups A-D were red and
Groups E-H blue. When a paired
club was drawn, for example, into
one of the red groups, the other
paired club – once it was drawn –
was automatically assigned to one
of the four blue groups.
Teams from Pot 1 were
provisionally placed in the first
position within their groups, teams
from Pot 2 provisionally took the
second spot in their sections, and so
on. Once the draw was completed,
a computer draw determined the
final position of the sides within their
group and therefore the order of the
home and away matches..