The league phase draw for the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League will be held on Thursday evening.
The draw ceremony will happen at 18:00 CET on Thursday 29 August.
As the first under the competition’s new 36-team single league format, it is an occasion not to be missed. Check out the draw timings where you are thanks to Hublot, Official Timekeeper of the UEFA Champions League.
How will the draw work?
Clubs will be seeded in four pots based on their individual club coefficient at the beginning of the season (the only exception being that the Champions League titleholders are always top seed in pot 1). Each team will then be drawn against two opponents from each pot, one of which they will play at home and one away.
In the league phase, teams cannot face opponents from their own country and can be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same country.
All 36 teams will be manually drawn using physical balls. For every team manually drawn, a designated automated software will randomly draw their opponents, who will be revealed on screen in the draw hall and on television. The software will also decide which matches will be at home and which away. The draw will start with Pot 1, assigning opponents to all teams, one after the other, and will continue with the other pots in descending order until all teams have been assigned their opponents.
New Champions League format
The biggest change sees a transformation from the traditional group stage to a single league phase including all participating teams.
Each side will play eight matches in the new league phase (former group stage). They will no longer play three opponents twice – home and away – but will instead face fixtures against eight different teams, playing half of those matches at home and half of them away.
To determine the eight different opponents, the teams will initially be ranked in four seeding pots. Each team will then be drawn to play two opponents from each of these pots, playing one match against a team from each pot at home, and one away.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout stages, while the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure a place in the last 16 of the competition.
Teams ranked 25-36 are eliminated from all competitions.
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