2025/26 Champions League league phase draw: pots, how it works, format, rules, and conditions

The Champions League is here again. The league-phase draw in Monaco on Thursday (12 p.m. ET) signals the start of a season in which more favorites than ever will be vying for the continental title. The pots for the draw were finalized after the last round of the playoff stage.

PSG, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool are among the heavyweights alongside Spanish clubs. Real Madrid and Barcelona.

The four UCL pots

Pot 1: PSG, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern, Liverpool, Inter, Chelsea, Dortmund, Barcelona

Pot 2: Arsenal, Leverkusen, Atlético Madrid, Club Brugge, Atalanta, Villarreal, Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt, Benfica

Pot 3: Tottenham, PSV, Ajax, Napoli, Sporting CP, Olympiacos, Slavia Prague, Bodo/Glimt, Marseille

Pot 4: Monaco, Galatasaray, Copenhagen, Union Saint-Gilloise, Athletic Bilbao, Qarabag, Newcastle, Pafos, Kairat

The big leagues are tightening their grip on the competition. Spain will have five representatives and England six, thanks to ranking allocations – which went to the strongest leagues – and Tottenham’s Europa League triumph last season. The usual four clubs per country isn’t enough this time for Spain and England, Europe’s most powerful footballing nations. The result is a Champions League packed with quality on all sides.

Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético, Athletic and Villarreal chase glory for LaLiga, while Liverpool, Arsenal, City, Newcastle, Chelsea and Tottenham fly the English flag. PSG, Marseille and Monaco carry French hopes, Bayern, Dortmund, Eintracht and Leverkusen represent Germany, and Napoli, Inter, Atalanta and Juventus lead Italy’s challenge. It’s a stellar lineup.

How the UCL league phase works

As last season, the UEFA tournament will be played in a league format among 36 participants. Each club will play eight games – four at home and four away against varied opponents. The draw, carried out by computer to account for multiple restrictions, will determine the path for each team. The software assigns every side two rivals from each of the four pots, including their own. There are two conditions: clubs from the same country will not face each other, and no team can have more than two opponents from the same league.

The level of opposition in the middle pots – 2 and 3 – will shape the difficulty of the draw. Pot 4 appears more manageable, despite Monaco and Newcastle, especially in this edition where several outsiders have slipped in, like Kazakhstan’s Kairat or Cyprus’s Pafos.

New twist in the UCL knockouts

The league phase remains unchanged: the top eight go straight into the round of 16, while teams finishing 9th to 24th face a playoff round of 32 to join them.

From this year, however, there is a major new rule in the knockout stages. Any team finishing higher in the league phase than its opponent will play the second leg at home from the round of 16 through to the semifinals. If a club eliminates a side that finished above them, it immediately inherits that privilege for the following rounds. It is a way of rewarding performance in the league phase while also recognizing those who manage a shock in the latter stages.

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