The 2017–18 UEFA Champions League group stage began on 12 September and ended on 6 December 2017.
[1] A total of 32 teams competed in the group stage to decide the 16 places in the knockout phase of the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League.
[2] The draw for the group stage was held on 24 August 2017, 18:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on the following principles: 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.
The fixtures were decided after the draw, using a computer draw not shown to public, with the following match sequence (Regulations Article 16.02):[2] There were certain scheduling restrictions: for example, teams from the same city (e.g., Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid) in general were not scheduled to play at home on the same matchday (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., Russia and Azerbaijan) were not scheduled to play at home on the last matchday (due to cold weather and simultaneous kick-off times).