Champions League draw live: Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea to discover league phase opponents | OneFootball

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The draw for the league phase of the 2025/26 Champions League takes places in Monaco this evening, with Premier League clubs eager to find out their opponents for the second edition of the competition’s new league phase.

England’s top flight has six representatives in Europe’s top cup competition this year, with Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea having finished in the top four last season before Newcastle took a place from fifth thanks to England’s co-efficient ranking.

And it was Tottenham who completed the line-up with a victory in the all-English Europa League final, with each club now waiting to see their home and away fixtures across the opening eight games of the competition.

Top European clubs including Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and holders PSG will also be part of the draw, with the first round of fixtures taking place on 16/17 September.

How did Premier League sides qualify?

In a similar vein, Newcastle also qualified by virtue of their league position, though they came fifth in the Premier League.

Uefa awards an extra place in the Champions League to the two countries with the highest co-efficient rating each season.

The rating is earned by adding up the ‘points’ every side from a country obtains in European competition, and then dividing that number by the number of sides participating. Two points are awarded for a win, and one for a draw (with various bonuses added depending on club progression).

Last season, England and Spain were awarded the extra places, with Newcastle and Villarreal taking them.

Chris Wilson28 August 2025 16:07

Who could the British sides face?

The main rule ahead of the draw is that clubs from the same country can’t face each other, but other than that you can draw pretty much any of the rest of the teams in the competition, even those in your own pot.

The other rule is that you can only face teams from the same country twice in the league phase.

With that in mind, Liverpool, City and Chelsea could face any of PSG, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund or Barcelona from Pot One, as well as Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Benfica, Atalanta, Villarreal, Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt and Club Brugge from Pot Two.

The other three Premier League clubs could all face the same opposition from the top two pots.