UEFA club competition draws: PSG, Real Madrid and Napoli coming to town! | OneFootball

The draws the league phase of UEFA’s three club competitions in 2025/26 took place on Thursday and Friday this week.

Sporting and Benfica are in the Champions League while Porto and Braga fly the flag for Portugal in the Europa League, with no Portuguese representative in the Conference League (for the 4th time in five years) following Santa Clara’s elimination in the playoff.

With each club playing eight matches (four at home, four away), the draw naturally threw up some mouthwatering ties to look forward to over the coming months.

Tough Champions League task for Lisbon duo

Portuguese champions Sporting will face two of the usual favourites to win the competition outright every year. The Lions host the current holders Paris Saint-Germain, and will therefore welcome back left-back Nuno Mendes, and must travel to Bavaria to play Bayern Munich.

In addition to the huge obstacle of Paris at Alvalade, Sporting will feel they can get points in their other three home matches against Club Brugge, Marseille and Kairat Almaty.

And Rui Borges’ men must make the most of their home games given that there matches outside Portugal are extremely challenging. As well as Bayern, Sporting will twice travel to Italy to take on Serie A champions Napoli and Juventus, and will also play against La Liga outfit Athletic Club.

Despite being in Pot 2 rather than Pot 3 owing to their higher ranking, Benfica’s draw was arguably even tougher than their Lisbon neighbours.

The Eagles welcome Real Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Napoli and Qarabag to the Estádio da Luz. The match against the Spanish giants will be extra special for the Benfica fans, given that the two Iberian giants have not played each other since 1965.

Benfica have been handed an enormously challenging set of away fixtures: Chelsea, Newcastle, Juventus and Ajax.

A reminder that in the new Champions League format that was implemented last season, the 32 sides will play eight games each in the league phase and must finish in the top 24 places in the standings to stay in the competition. Teams who finish in the top eight places automatically qualify for the Round of 16, while clubs who finish in positions 9 to 24 must win a playoff to make knockout stage.

Good luck Sporting and Benfica!

Northern neighbours hopeful of Europa League progress

Porto and Braga were given curiously similar draws in the Europa League, which is played in an identical format to the Champions League, i.e. a single league involving 32 teams. The two Portuguese clubs will meet no fewer than five of the same opponents.

After a miserable season for Porto last year, the Dragons appear to have been given a new lease of life by Italian coach Francesco Farioli and an exciting set of summer transfers. And the draw on Friday will have fuelled hopes that the feel-good factor can continue at the Estádio do Dragão.

Porto will start favourites for victory in seven of their eight matches in the Europa League, the exception being a difficult-looking trip to EPL side Nottingham Forest, who have made great strides under former Porto coach and goalkeeper Nuno Espírito Santo.

At home Porto welcome Rangers, Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade), Nice and Malmö. The away fixtures involve trips to Austria (Salzburg), Czechia (Viktoria Plzen) and Netherlands (Utrecht), in addition to the game in Nottingham.

For Braga the home fixtures are Feyenoord, Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade), Nottingham Forest and Genk.

As for their away games, the Warriors will travel to Glasgow twice to take on Rangers and Celtic, which judging by recent results that indicate Scottish football is at an all-time low may be no bad thing.

Braga also play in France against Nice, and in the Netherlands, against Go Ahead Eagles.

Good luck Porto and Braga!

Follow the fortunes of all four of Portugal’s representatives in Europe this season on PortuGOAL with detailed reports of all matches on the website. The full schedule of matches will be announced on Saturday 30 August.