When is the Champions League draw and how does it work?
The Champions League is set to get under way on Tuesday, September 8 – but first UEFA must take care of the pretty important matter of the draw for the league phase.
36 teams will take part in the first proper round of the competition, with the teams that have made it through the qualifying play-offs joining the sides that have already sealed an automatic place.
Here’s what you need to know about how the Champions League draw will work when it takes place on Thursday, August 27 at 5pm UK time.
Everything you need to know about the Champions League draw
You’re probably familiar with the format by now, but in case you need a reminder…36 teams will compete in one massive league table, with each side drawn to play against eight other teams.
Once all the games are played, the top eight sides advance straight through to the round of 16, while the teams ranked between 9th and 24th playing each other in a knockout phase play-off. The bottom 12 sides are eliminated.
The question, then, is how each side’s eight games are decided.
The 36 teams are divided into four pots of nine teams each, based on their UEFA coefficient (essentially a score based on how good the team has been over the past few years, mainly based around European performance).
Every side will be randomly drawn into two fixtures from each of the four pots, with the only restriction being that sides from the same country cannot play against one another in the league phase.
The pots are as follows, with the TBD places set to be filled by the play-off winners. Slavia Prague’s pot will depend on which sides make it through the play-offs.
|
Pot 1 |
Pot 2 |
Pot 3 |
Pot 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
PSG |
Borussia Dortmund |
Feyenoord |
Stuttgart |
|
Bayern Munich |
Roma |
Lille |
Como |
|
Real Madrid |
Sporting |
Napoli |
Lens |
|
Liverpool |
Aston Villa |
RB Leipzig |
Slavia Prague or TBD |
|
Inter |
Porto |
Villarreal |
TBD (Levski Sofa or AEK) |
|
Manchester City |
Manchester United |
Shakhtar |
TBD (Slovan Bratislava or Celje) |
|
Arsenal |
Club Brugge |
Galatasaray |
TBD (Hapoel Be’er-Sheva or Sabah) |
|
Barcelona |
Real Betis |
Slavia Prague or TBD |
TBD |
|
Atletico Madrid |
PSV |
TBD (Fenerbahce or Lyon) |
TBD |
So, for example (and purely for the sake of argument), Liverpool could be randomly drawn to play Real Madrid and Inter from Pot 1, Club Brugge and Sporting from Pot 2, Feyenoord and Shakhtar from Pot 3, and Como and Lens from Pot 4.
Starting with the pot 1 sides and working down through them, balls will be drawn purely to decide the order in which the sides get their draw.
UEFA’s computer will then give that side all eight fixtures at once. They will then move onto the next team and do the same, and then carry on that way until all 36 teams know all eight of their games.
The exact dates for each game are then determined in the days following the draw.
The play-off games are as follows, with the winner of each two-legged tie qualifying for the league phase:
- Levski Sofia vs AEK Athens
- Celtic vs LASK
- Dinamo Zagreb vs Viking
- Slovan Bratislava vs Celje
- Hapoel Be’er Sheva vs Sabah
- Fenerbahce vs Lyon
- NEC vs Bodo/Glimt
Atletico Madrid’s Estadio Metropolitano will host the 2027 Champions League final at the end of the campaign.
