Placed in hat 4, Olympique de Marseille had reason to fear a strong draw, but OM will finally have a shot to play in a weak group D, with Eintracht Frankfurt, the English club of Tottenham and Sporting Lisbon.
Paris and its stars will evolve for their part within a group H which, in addition to Juve, will include Benfica Lisbon and the Israelis of Maccabi Haifa.
Mbappé, Neymar, Messi and others, who have made a terrific start to the season in Ligue 1, will therefore be widely favored in the forecasts to obtain one of the two qualifying places for the round of 16 of an event that the club of the capital dreams more than ever of winning.
In addition, if Juventus Turin appears to be a tough opponent, the Turinese will have to find the right fuel between now and the double shock against PSG, given their sluggish start to the championship.
For OM, the ambition is much less, but the lenient draw in Istanbul could lead the Olympians to dream of qualifying for the round of 16.
The last two campaigns of the Phocaeans in C1 (2013-14 and 2020-2021) have been very disappointing, with eleven defeats in 12 matches, but they have a card to play in a group which promises to be very open, with a Portuguese club (Sporting) and German (Frankfurt) and English (Tottenham) teams which are not among the biggest teams in their championships.
The last time OM qualified for the knockout stages of C1 was during the 2011-12 season, with Didier Deschamps as coach.
The Olympians had been eliminated in the quarter-finals by Bayern.
These group matches will take place from September 6 to November 2, a very tight schedule due to the World Cup being held from November 20 in Qatar.
© 2022 AFP