The 2008–09 UEFA Champions League group stage matches took place between 16 September and 10 December 2008.
Seeding structure
Seeding was determined by the
UEFA coefficients
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 ...
: Pot 1 held teams ranked 1–10 (since Milan and Sevilla did not qualify), Pot 2 held teams ranked 11–23, Pot 3 held teams ranked 25–45, while Pot 4 held teams ranked 46–193 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
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
and
Internazionale, who also share a stadium) did not play on the same day.
Of the 16 teams in Pots 1 and 2, 14 eventually qualified for the first knockout round. The exceptions were
Werder Bremen (to the UEFA Cup) and
PSV (eliminated). Their places went to
Panathinaikos
Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos ( el, Παναθηναϊκός Αθλητικός Όμιλος, literally in English: "Panathenaic Athletic Club" or Panathinaikos A.C.), also known simply as Panathinaikós , is a major Greek multi-sport club ba ...
(from Pot 3) and
Atlético Madrid
Club Atlético de Madrid, Sociedad Anónima Deportiva, 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 profess ...
(from Pot 4).
Aalborg BK
Aalborg Boldspilklub is a Danish sports club based in the city of Aalborg. The club is also known as AaB for short (cf. logo) or Aalborg BK. Through time the club has had branches in cricket, tennis, ice hockey, handball, and basketball, but curre ...
were the lowest-ranked Pot 4 team to qualify for the UEFA Cup Round of 32.
Tie-breaking criteria
Based on paragraph 6.05 in th
UEFA regulationsfor the current season, if two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria were applied to determine the rankings:
#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 in all group matches played;
#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
CET or cet may refer to:
Places
* Cet, Albania
* Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus
* Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Comcast Ente ...
/
CEST CEST or cest may refer to:
* Central European Summer Time (UTC+2), daylight saving time observed in the central European time zone
* Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory
* Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer, a subset of Magnetization transfer in ...
, as listed by UEFA (local times are in parentheses).
Group A
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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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Group H
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Notes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:2008-09 UEFA Champions League group stage
Group Stage
UEFA Champions League group stages