Competition system
Starting from the 2024/25 season, the UEFA Champions League will participate in the newly established league stage, replacing the original 32 team group stage. Compared with previous 32 teams, this gives an additional 4 teams the opportunity to participate in the Champions League. Under the new match system, each team will play these 8 games with 8 different teams, instead of playing 2 matches with the three teams each as before. The new format will provide fans with more competitive and balanced games at all levels of the league stage.
wins one game with 3 points, draws one game and 1 point. After 8 rounds, 36 teams will automatically advance to the top 16 teams;
9-24 teams will play two rounds of play-offs, and the winner will get another 8 promotion places; the teams ranked 25-36 are directly eliminated and are not eligible to enter the Europa League.
The 9-16th team, as the seed team, faces the 17-24th team, and plays two rounds of games, and plays at the seed team in the second round. The winner advances to the top 16.
Starting from the top 16, the two-round knockout system is adopted (no away goal rules).
25/26 Champions League tier
First level: Paris (France/Defending Champion is the first team), Real Madrid (Spain), Manchester City (England), Bayern Munich (Germany), Liverpool (England), Inter Milan (Italy), Chelsea (England), Dortmund (Germany), Barcelona (Spain)
Second level : Arsenal (England), Leverkusen (Germany), Atletico Madrid (Spain), Benfica (Portugal), Atlanta (Italy), Villarreal (Spain), Juventus (Italy), Frankfurt (Germany), Bruges (Belgium)
Third level: Tottenham (England), Eindhoven (Netherlands), Ajax (Netherlands), Naples (Italy Less), Portuguese Sports (Portugal), Olympiacos (Greece), Slavia Prague (Czech Republic), Bode Shining (Norway), Marseille (France)
Fourth place: Copenhagen (Denmark), Monaco (France), Galatasaray (Turkey), San Giros (Belgium), Karabach (Azerbaijan), Athletic Bilbao (Spain), Newcastle United (Ing Lan), AEP Paphos (Cyprus), Almaty Keilat (Kazakhstan)
The principle of drawing lots is that in the league stage,
1) cannot confront teams from the same association (i.e. "Same country avoidance");
2) can only be drawn at most two teams from the same association. (The following figure is an example)
Suppose you are a La Liga team, and there are only 2 of them from the Premier League (or any league) in the league stage. ↓
The specific process of drawing lots
The draw will adopt a combination of manual and automated software random drawing. Start with the first team,
1) Manually draw one team from the 9 teams in the first level;
2) The software automatically draws two teams in each level as the opponent of the team in the first level, 2, 3 and 4 (at the same time, follow the "principles" above);
3) The software automatically decides home and away games, and each level has one home and one away game in each level;
This process will be cycled until all teams complete the pairing.
In this process, starting from the first team, 8 opponents are assigned to all 9 first teams in turn. Teams in the second, third and fourth grades continue to perform this draw process in turn until all teams are assigned to 8 opponents. UEFA said that the software will ensure complete randomness within the prescribed lottery principles, while ensuring that the lottery of all teams can be completed smoothly. At the end of the draw, all teams will know their 8 opponents. The specific schedule, match date and kick-off time will be formulated later and will be announced at the latest on August 30, 2025, Central European Time.
Champions League Championship Trophy
The current Champions League Trophy is 73.5 cm high and weighs 7.5 kg. If the 2025/26 season champion fails to qualify for the domestic competition, he will directly advance to the 2026/27 season UEFA Champions League stage. At the same time, the champion will also receive the right to compete with the 2025/26 Europa League championship in the 2026 European Super Cup.
