Champions League draw LIVE: Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Man City to learn opponents

The broadcast has begun with three women in Vuelta red dresses singing Tony Britten’s anthem, flanked by an orchestra.

A reminder that the draw will be broadcast on TNT Sports 1 and HBO Max in the United Kingdom, the joint host broadcasters in the UK of the Champions League alongside Prime Video.

The anticipation is palpable. Uefa’s live broadcast gets underway at 17:00 BST but it’s anyone’s guess what time the first name is drawn from Pot 1.

Uefa are considering bringing a criminal complaint against Gianni Infantino following the Fifa president’s plan to sell off commercial stakes in the World Cup.

A 56-page document, filed by Uefa’s lawyers in a federal court in the United States and seen by The Independent, declares that Uefa are “preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino” for “criminal mismanagement” following Fifa’s failed Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal.

Thirty-two of the clubs have been here before but this is new ground for Como, Lask, Sabah and Viking.

The Serie A side, coached by Cesc Fabregas, could be among the most interesting sides considering their rapid ascent. And it will be a rather nice away trip should any Premier League club be drawn against them too.

AEK, Fenerbahce, Lens, Porto, Betis, Roma and Manchester United are all back in the competition proper following absences of various lengths.

We face a wait for the full lowdown on dates and kick-off times. According to Uefa the complete fixture list might not be published until Saturday.

That is to ensure all the boxes on the aforementioned checklist are ticked off.

Another point of order: teams from the same country are unable to face each other at this stage. So Manchester United won’t be taking on City despite being in different pots, Real Madrid, Barca and Atletico will not take on Real Betis. You get the idea.

There are, however, further layers of complexity to contend with – teams can’t play more than two consecutive home or away fixtures; there are security factors to consider around cities with more than one club.

Or as Uefa wordily put it: “In accordance with Paragraph 23.01 (b) of the competition regulations, the UEFA administration decides which matches are played on Tuesday, which on Wednesday and which on Thursday (MD1 only), as well as the kick-off times.

“Furthermore, as per Paragraph 17.02 of the above-mentioned regulations a club, in principle, does not play more than two home or two away matches in a row, and each club plays one home match and one away match in the first two matchdays and the last two matchdays.

“If need be, however, the UEFA administration may derogate from these rules.”

There will be montages, there will be small talk but once the actual draw gets underway, the Pot 1 teams will be extracted from their proverbial hat first.

Then, gradually, the big guns will be paired with two opponents in each of the four pots (unsurprisingly, Pot 2 will follow next) before they all magically end up with four home games and four away.