Champions League: draw, opponents, format, fixtures | OneFootball

Participants

The final seven of the total 36 participants will be confirmed late on Wednesday evening after the second legs of the play-off ties. They will be divided into four pots of nine clubs each according to their UEFA coefficient. At the end of the 2025/26 season, Borussia Dortmund were 11th in the rankings with 100.750 points, led by Bayern Munich, and will therefore be placed in pot two.

Draw

Placement in the four different pots has no direct impact on whether a club will face what are commonly described as “easy” or “tough” opponents. Each of the 36 participants will be drawn by computer against two clubs from each of the four pots in the league phase. Matches between two teams from the same association are not possible. That means BVB cannot face Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig or VfB Stuttgart in the league phase.

Format

As in the previous two seasons, each club will play four home matches and four away matches. The results will go into one combined table featuring all 36 participants. The top eight teams will qualify directly for the round of 16, while the teams placed ninth to 24th will contest the remaining eight spots in the last 16 in a play-off format.

Dates

The league phase, consisting of eight matchdays, begins on 8 September 2026 and ends on 27 January 2027. The play-offs will be played from mid-February 2027.

Schedule

The UEFA Champions League schedule, including match dates and kick-off times, will be announced by Saturday, 29 August at the latest. UEFA has announced that it will publish a corresponding update on its social media channels shortly before the schedule is released.

Tickets

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.