New Champions League format: qualified teams, schedule, group stage draw, key dates

The Champions League never stops! Just three weeks after Real Madrid lifted their 15th European Cup/Champions League trophy at Wembley Stadium after beating Dortmund in the final, the 2024/25 campaign was up and running with the draw for the first qualifying round being staged with games getting underway on 9 July.

This season the competition undergoes a significant change however and for the first time since 2003, the 32-team group stage phase is set to be replaced by a 36-team league phase for the first time using a format being known as the ‘Swiss Model’ with the terminology coming from the world of chess.

How will this new 2024/25 UCL format work?

Instead of traditional format that saw all 32 teams being drawn into eight groups of four and playing six group Games, the 36 qualified teams will instead take part in eight matches and go into one giant table, with goal difference the first tie-breaker for teams finishing level on points.

The draw for the league phase will be staged on 29 August at 12pm (ET) and will see the 36 clubs divided into four pots of nine, which will be based on UEFA’s five-year club coefficient with each team set to be drawn to face two clubs from each pot, including their own, which should ensure their eight group-stage matches are of similar difficulty on the whole.

The top eight teams in the league go through to the knockout stages, with the 16 teams who finish between ninth and 24th taking part in a two-legged playoff to join them. The playoff winners will be unseeded in the next round, with the competition reverting back to its ‘traditional’ format thereafter... Round of 16, quarter and semi finals all leading up to the 2025 final which will take place in Munich on 31 May (2025).

Final round of playoff games

There are seven spaces yet to be filled to complete the 36 participants in the next stage and after a lengthy qualification process, the winners of these final seven playoff matches will join Europe’s elite in the new format of the UCL.

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How the four pots are shaping up

The dates for the eight UCL 2024/25 matchdays

Other key dates for the 2024/25 season Champions League