On Friday August 29, UEFA will make their first Champions League draw under the new 'Swiss model' system that comes into effect for the new campaign.
The Champions League group stage has been done away with as we know it, but there is still a draw to be made to determine which sides will play one another.
Each competing side will play eight games in what is now known as the league phase (showing UEFA's trademark knack for linguistic clumsiness: we're all going to have to say 'Champions League league phase' now, are we, repeating the words 'league' like idiots?). The results all count towards a single league table that will determine which sides will go through to the next round of the competition.
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Champions League pots 2024/25: Who's qualified and which pot are they in?
The pots for the 2024/25 Champions League league phase draw are as follows:
Pot 1
- Real Madrid
- Manchester City
- Bayern Munich
- Paris Saint-Germain
- Liverpool
- Inter Milan
- Borussia Dortmund
- RB Leipzig
- Barcelona
Pot 2
- Bayer Leverkusen
- Atletico Madrid
- Atalanta
- Juventus
- Benfica
- Arsenal
- Club Brugge
- Shakhtar Donetsk
- Milan
Pot 3
- Feyenoord
- Sporting CP
- PSV Eindhoven
- Celtic
- Winner of Young Boys v Galatasaray play-off
- Winner of Dinamo Zagreb v Qarabag play-off
- Winner of Lille v Slavia Prague play-off
- TBD (see below)
- TBD (see below)
Pot 4
- Monaco
- Aston Villa
- Bologna
- Girona
- VfB Stuttgart
- Sturm Graz
- Brest
- Winner of Malma v Sparta Prague play-off
- TBD (see below)
Who will fill those TBD slots?
Those belong to the winners of the three other play-off games - we've not been able to include them more precisely, because which pot they go into depends on who goes through.
The games in question are:
- Midtjylland v Slovan Bratislava
- Bodo/Glimt v Red Star Belgrade
- Dynamo Kyiv v Red Bull Salzburg
The qualifying side with the lowest coefficient will go into pot 4, with the others going into pot 3.
How does the Champions League draw work?
All 36 teams will be drawn manually using physical balls and then allocated eight opponents automatically by a computer, including will games will be at home and which away.
In the league phase, teams cannot face other sides from the same country, and nobody will play more than two games against sides from any one particular country - so for instance, Liverpool could not face Arsenal, Manchester City or Aston Villa, and would only be able to face a maximum of two of the four Spanish teams.
The draw this season is fully computerised, as doing it otherwise would have taken a monstrously long time even by UEFA's usual drawn-out standards. Find out more about how the Champions League draw works.
When will the games be played?
League stage games will be held as follows, with all 18 games on the final matchday kicking off simultaneously.
| Matchday | Dates |
|---|---|
| Matchday 1 | September 17-19 |
| Matchday 2 | October 1-2 |
| Matchday 3 | October 22-23 |
| Matchday 4 | November 5-6 |
| Matchday 5 | November 26-27 |
| Matchday 6 | December 10-11 |
| Matchday 7 | January 21-22 |
| Matchday 8 | January 29 |
The knockout stages will then begin in February with a knockout round played between the 16 sides who finish from 9th to 24th in the league phase.
The winners of those ties will then go on to join the teams ranked 1st-8th in the round of 16.
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