The 2012–13 UEFA Champions League group stage featured 32 teams: the 22 automatic qualifiers and the 10 winners of the play-off round (five through the Champions Route, five through the League Route).[1]
The teams were drawn into eight groups of four, and played each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The top two teams in each group advanced to the round of 16, while the third-placed teams dropped down to the Europa League round of 32.[2]
The draw for the group stage was held on 30 August 2012, 17:45 CEST (UTC+2), at Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.
Teams were seeded into four pots based on their 2012 UEFA club coefficients.[3] The title holders, Chelsea, were automatically seeded into Pot 1. Pot 1 holds teams ranked 1–12, Pot 2 holds teams ranked 13–31, Pot 3 holds teams ranked 32–60, while Pot 4 holds teams ranked 63–171.
| Key to colours in group tables | |
|---|---|
| Group winners and runners-up advanced to the round of 16 | |
| Third-placed teams entered the Europa League at the round of 32 |
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Each group contained one team from each of the four pots, with the restriction that teams from the same national association cannot be drawn against each other. 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 played their matches on Tuesday, while the other four groups played their matches on Wednesday, with the two sets of groups (A–D, E–H) alternating between each matchday. There were other restrictions, e.g., teams from the same city (e.g. Manchester United and Manchester City) in general did 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), and Russian teams did not play at home on the last matchday due to cold weather.
The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 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 to determine the rankings:[2]
The matchdays were 18–19 September, 2–3 October, 23–24 October, 6–7 November, 20–21 November, and 4–5 December 2012.[4]
Times are CET/CEST, as listed by UEFA (local times are in parentheses).
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