The 2019–20 CAF Champions League group stage started on 29 November 2019 and ended on 1 February 2020.[1] A total of 16 teams competed in the group stage to decide the eight places in the knockout stage of the 2019–20 CAF Champions League.[2]
Draw
The draw for the group stage was held on 9 October 2019, 20:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the Hilton Pyramids Golf in Cairo, Egypt.[3] The 16 teams, all winners of the first round of qualifying, were drawn into four groups of four.
The teams were seeded by their performances in the CAF competitions for the previous five seasons (CAF 5-year ranking points shown in parentheses). Each group contained one team from each of Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, and Pot 4, and each team was drawn into one of the positions in their group.[4]
In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order (Regulations III. 20 & 21):[2]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Away goals scored in all group matches;
Drawing of lots.
Schedule
The schedule of each matchday is as follows. Effective from the Champions League group stage, matches are played on Fridays and Saturdays. Kick-off times are fixed at 13:00 (Saturdays only), 16:00 and 19:00 GMT.
Note: Positions for scheduling do not use the seeding pots, e.g. Team 1 is not necessarily the team from Pot 1 in the draw.[5]
Matchday
Dates
Matches
Original dates[1]
Revised dates[6]
Matchday 1
29–30 November 2019
Team 1 vs. Team 4, Team 2 vs. Team 3
Matchday 2
6–7 December 2019
Team 3 vs. Team 1, Team 4 vs. Team 2
Matchday 3
27–28 December 2019
Team 4 vs. Team 3, Team 1 vs. Team 2
Matchday 4
14–15 February 2020
10–11 January 2020
Team 3 vs. Team 4, Team 2 vs. Team 1
Matchday 5
21–22 February 2020
24–25 January 2020
Team 4 vs. Team 1, Team 3 vs. Team 2
Matchday 6
6–7 March 2020
31 January – 1 February 2020
Team 1 vs. Team 3, Team 2 vs. Team 4
Groups
Times are GMT as listed by CAF (local times, even if not different, are in parentheses).
^Since the identity of the winners of the first round tie between Zamalek and Génération Foot was not known at the time of the draw, the ranking of the higher-ranked team Zamalek (44 pts) was used for seeding of the draw.
^The Al-Ahly v Étoile du Sahel match, originally scheduled on 24 January 2020, was postponed for 48 hours following request from the Egyptian Football Association due to security concerns ahead of the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution of 2011.[7]