The 2009–10 UEFA Champions League group stage matches took place between 15 September and 9 December 2009. The draw for the eight groups took place on 27 August 2009, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
The group stage featured the 22 automatic qualifiers and the 10 winners of the play-off round (five through the Champions Path, five through the Non-Champions Path).
The draw for the group stage was held in Monaco on 27 August 2009.
Seeding was determined by the UEFA coefficients:[1] Pot 1 held teams ranked 1–8, Pot 2 held teams ranked 10–28, Pot 3 held teams ranked 34–64, while Pot 4 held teams ranked 97–190 and unranked teams.
Clubs from the same association were paired up to split the matchdays between Tuesday and Wednesday. Clubs with the same pairing letter played on different days, ensuring that teams from the same city (e.g. Milan and Inter Milan, who also share a stadium) did not play on the same day.[2]
Based on Article 7.06 in the UEFA regulations, if two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria were applied to determine the rankings:[3]
higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
superior goal difference from 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;
superior goal difference from all group matches played;
higher number of goals scored;
higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.
Groups
Times are CET/CEST,[note 1] as listed by UEFA (local times are in parentheses).
Note: In 1991–92, the competition was still known as the European Cup, but is included as it was the first to use a group stage format. In that season and 1992–93, there was no knockout phase between the group stage and final.
