The 2020–21 CAF Champions League group stage started on 12 February and ended on 10 April 2021.[1] A total of 16 teams competed in the group stage to decide the eight places in the knockout stage of the 2020–21 CAF Champions League.[2]
The draw for the group stage was held on 8 January 2021, 12:30 GMT (14:30 local time, UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[3][4] 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 allocated to the positions in their group according to their pot.[5][6]
In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The winners and runners-up of each group will advance to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.
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;
The schedule of each matchday is as follows (matches scheduled in midweek in italics).[1] Kick-off times are fixed at 13:00 (Saturdays only), 16:00 and 19:00 GMT.
^The Al Ahly v Al Merrikh match, originally scheduled to be played on 13 February 2021, was rescheduled to be played on 16 February 2021 due to Al Ahly's participation in the 2020 FIFA Club World Cup in Qatar between 4 and 11 February 2021.[7]