City were blessed with a clear path to the knockout stages on Thursday’s UEFA Champions League group stage draw.
As the Pot One representative drawn into Group C of the 2019/20 Champions League, English champions Manchester City were afforded a kind draw in which they will face Shakhtar Donetsk, Dinamo Zagreb, and Atalanta.
City have faced Ukrainian champions Shakhtar in the Champions League group stage in recent years, topping Group F with 15 points in 2017-18 while Shakhtar managed to finish above Napoli on 12 points in order to advance to the knockouts. While Shakhtar are a good side, considering the possibility that City could have faced Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, or Borussia Dortmund, the Ukrainian outfit represent perhaps the least tricky opposition for Group C’s Pot Two representative.
While City had appeared to dodge a bullet by avoiding one of Europe’s giants lurking in Pot Two, their fortune continued in the draw for Pot Three, avoiding the likes of Inter Milan, Valencia, and Lyon to draw Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb, again among the weakest teams in the pot. The Croatian champions qualified for the group stage by defeating Rosenborg 3-1 on aggregate on Tuesday.
Finally, the Citizens drew perhaps the most intriguing side in the entire competition with first-time Champions League participants Atalanta, who shocked all of Italian football a year ago by finishing third in Serie A in order to qualify for Europe’s elite club competition. While Pot Four could have signaled impending doom for Italy’s Cinderella story, Atalanta have been given a new lease on life with a draw that places them in clear contention for a shot at playing in the knockout stages of the Champions League.
City will be heavy favorites in all six group stage matches this season, with a slight chance to even take all 18 points available. City have been relatively fortunate with the group draws in recent seasons, and the Blues have been handed arguably their most favorable position of the Pep Guardiola era here in 2019/20, a season that could very well be defined by their performance in Europe’s premier competition.
With a straightforward draw and universally-anticipated advancement to the knockout stages in what must be described as this year’s “group of life”, much of the focus of the spectacle that is the group stage will not fall on the Etihad Stadium, yet City must be prepared to assert their dominance atop the group and be prepared for what could be an era-defining knockout stage in Manchester.