The national championships in Europe will soon come to an end, and the contours of the next season of European competitions are already a little looming.
Became known 11 out of 32 teamswho will play in the 2023/24 Champions League group stage:
Manchester City (England) Arsenal (England) Barcelona (Spain) Real Madrid (Spain) Napoli (Italy) Bavaria (Germany) Borussia Dortmund (Germany) Benfica (Portugal) Feyenoord (Netherlands) Celtic (Scotland) Crvena Zvezda (Serbia)
More 13 teams will go directly to the Champions League group after the end of the championships in the following countries:
England (2 more places) Spain (2 more places) Italy (3 more places) Germany (2 more places) France (2 places) Portugal (1 more place) Austria (1 place)
An additional 6 teams will be determined in the qualification (4 through the Champions Path, 2 through the League Representatives Path). 2 more places – for the winner of the Champions League and Europa League this season.
Champion of Ukraine The 2022/23 season starts in the fourth qualifying round of the Champions Path. At the same time, the UPL winner can go directly to the group stage if the place reserved for the 2022/23 Champions League winner is not used.
If Real or Manchester City win the Champions League 2022/23, then the champions of Ukraine (conditionally, Shakhtar) will immediately fall into the Champions League group, since the “creamy” and “citizens” have already qualified for the group stage. However, Real Madrid and Man City play each other in the semi-finals of the tournament, and someone from the Milan-Inter pair will be another finalist. Inter are now in 3rd place in Serie A, which gives them the right, like Real Madrid with City, to directly enter the group in the next European campaign. Milan are currently in 5th position in the Serie A table, which gives them a place in the Europa League.
Champion of Ukraine (assuming Shakhtar) may not get in the Champions League group 23/23 only with two options:
Inter win 2022/23 Champions League and miss Serie A top 4 Milan win 2022/23 Champions League and miss Serie A top 4
Considering that the first match of the 1/2 finals of the Champions League between the Milan clubs ended with a score of 2:0 in favor of Inter, it is much more likely that the Nerazzurri will reach the final of the European Cup. And since the “black and blue” broke away from “Milan” by 5 points in the Serie A table (3 rounds left to play), they are unlikely to miss out on a place in Italy’s top 4. Given all the chances and possible outcomes, the UPL champion with a probability higher than 90% will qualify directly for the 2023/24 Champions League group.
Vice-champion of Ukraine starts very early in qualifying, in the second qualifying round of the League Path. The UPL silver medalist will need to go through 3 rounds to qualify for the Champions League group. Last year, Dynamo failed to do this, which defeated Fenerbahce and Sturm, but lost to Benfica.
Interestingly, the vice-champion of Ukraine (conditionally, Dnipro-1) is not guaranteed the European Cup group, because in the event of three defeats, the team will be eliminated even before the autumn stage, going through the chain:
Q2 Champions League => Q3 LU => Q4 Best Male => group / out
And here 3rd place UPL in any case will play in the European Cup group. The bronze medalist of the UPL (at the moment, Zorya has this place) will get into Q4 of the Europa League and, if they lose, they will go to the group stage of the Conference League, and if they win, they will go to the Europa League group.
