Manchester City are guaranteed to be seeded in pot 2 in next season's Champions League draw following Napoli's failure to reach the Europa League final.
And City are almost certain to be joined in that pot by Real Madrid after they failed to defend their Champions League crown.
A change to the rules from next season means the champions of the top seven leagues, as ranked by UEFA coefficient, will be seeded along with the holders of the competition. It means Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Juventus have already sealed their place in pot 1 as domestic champions, while they look set to be joined by Barcelona, Benfica, Paris-Saint Germain and Zenit Saint Petersburg as they close in on their respective titles.
Pots 2 through to 4 are then constructed solely on UEFA coefficient, not league position and, while City are only ranked 17th, they benefit from the failure of Schalke (ranked 7th) and Borussia Dortmund (13th) to qualify.
Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven are also set to be seeded as, if the position reserved for the holders is not required, then that place passes to the league which UEFA ranks 8th. As Barcelona and Juventus face each other in the final, the Eredivisie will be handed a seeded berth unless Barca throw away the Liga title. PSV will be the lowest-ranked team of the seeds, currently 30th.
It will be a short-lived bonus for the Eredivisie, however. The access list for the competition is based on the coefficient rankings from the end of the 2013-14 season, when the Netherlands was 8th. However, Ukraine has now moved above them so, should the same situation occur next season, then its Premier League champions would be seeded instead.
Man City's place in pot 2 was under threat from Napoli, who are three coefficient points behind Manuel Pellegrini's team in the UEFA rankings. Had Napoli won the Europa League they would almost certainly have gained enough coefficient points to move above City and take the final place in pot 2. But now, even if Napoli qualify for the Champions League via Serie A, they can no longer score any coefficient points to overtake City.
Real Madrid will also be in pot 2 unless they can somehow claw back the four-point gap to Barca at the top of La Liga. Their last realistic hope of being seeded was to win the Champions League, and that was ended by their 3-2 aggregate defeat to Juve in Wednesday's semifinal.
Pot 1 (with Barca winning La Liga): Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, PSG, Benfica, Zenit, PSV Eindhoven.
Pot 2 (on current league positions): Real Madrid, Atletico, Manchester United*, Porto, Arsenal, Valencia*, Bayer Leverkusen*, Man City
(*must play qualifying round)
With such a strong collection of teams in the pot 2 next season there is likely to be some very tough groups, though City will now be hopeful of avoiding yet another nightmare draw -- Dortmund, Ajax and Real Madrid in 2012-13; Bayern, Roma and CSKA this season -- by avoiding being placed in pot 3.
Shakhtar Donetsk, FC Basel and Sevilla, if they win the Europa League, are currently in line to move up to pot 2 should any of the three teams in the qualifying round be knocked out.
The winners of the Europa League, who would normally only earn a place in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League, will also go straight to the group stage next season. This is because the Champions League winners will have also qualified via their domestic league, and thus the place in the group stage reserved for the holders is not required.
As it stands the seeded teams in the final playoff round for the non-champions route will be Man United, Valencia, Leverkusen, Shakhtar and Ajax. And there could be some tough ties with Sporting Lisbon and either Monaco or Marseille unseeded, while minnows FC Krasnodar are currently holding off CSKA Moscow for the qualifying route from Russia and would be one of the unseeded teams.
If Real Madrid were to win La Liga, then they would swap places with Barcelona in pot 1. If Barcelona then won the Champions League, Barca would replace PSV in pot 1, Shakhtar Donetsk would move up to pot 2, and PSV would drop to pot 3.