The 2015–16 UEFA Champions League group stage began on 15 September and ended on 9 December 2015. A total of 32 teams competed in the group stage to decide the 16 places in the knockout phase of the 2015–16 UEFA Champions League. Draw The draw was held on 27 August 2015, 17:45 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on the following principles (introduced starting this season): Pot 1 contained the title holders and the champions of the top seven associations based on their 2014 UEFA country coefficients. As the title holders (Barcelona) were one of the champions of the top seven associations, the champions of the association ranked eighth were also seeded into Pot 1 (regulations Article 13.05). Pots 2, 3 and 4 contained the remaining teams, seeded based on their 2015 UEFA club coefficients. 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 play their matches on Tuesday, while the other four groups play their matches on Wednesday, with the two sets of groups (A–D, E–H) alternating between each matchday. There are other restrictions: for example, teams from the same city (e.g., Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid, Chelsea and Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United) in general do 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, due to logistics and crowd control), and teams in certain countries (e.g., Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan) do not play at home on the last matchday (due to cold weather and simultaneous kick-off times). On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries. Therefore, Ukrainian clubs Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv (both Pot 3) and Russian clubs Zenit Saint Petersburg (Pot 1) and CSKA Moscow (Pot 3) could not be drawn into the same group. Teams Below are the 32 teams