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Everything about the 2026/27 Champions League — the away days, the reunions, the January pile-up — is settled in a few minutes on Thursday. The field of 36 was completed late on Wednesday, when the last four play-off ties were decided, and those clubs now learn the eight opponents standing between them and the knockout rounds less than a day after qualifying. Below: the timings, the confirmed pots, the format and every date between now and the final.
When Is the 2026/27 Champions League Draw?
The league phase draw takes place on Thursday, August 27 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, starting at 18:00 CEST — 17:00 BST in the UK, 12 p.m. ET and 9 a.m. PT in the United States.
Broadcaster Reshmin Chowdhury fronts the ceremony alongside UEFA deputy secretary general Giorgio Marchetti and former UEFA communications chief Pedro Pinto, with president Aleksander Ceferin also scheduled to address the room. The confirmed seedings and the detailed draw procedure are published on UEFA.com from 08:30 CET that morning.
One thing Thursday will not produce is a calendar. Clubs leave knowing who they play and whether each tie is at home or away; the fixture list with exact dates and kick-off times follows separately, no later than Saturday, August 29.
How the League Phase Draw Works
Twenty-nine of the 36 participants booked their places through last season’s domestic competitions. The remaining seven came through qualifying, which finished on Wednesday night.
Pot allocation follows UEFA’s club coefficient rankings, built on results across European competition over the five seasons ending in 2025/26. There is one override: the reigning champion is automatically top seed in Pot 1, which is how Paris Saint-Germain head the list.
Every club faces eight different opponents — two from each of the four pots, including its own, with one of each pair at home and one away. That produces four home matches and four away. A physical ball is drawn for each team, after which the software selects all eight opponents in a single automated step.
Two restrictions shape the outcome: clubs from the same national association cannot be paired together, and nobody can be drawn against more than two opponents from any one country.
Who Is in Each Pot
All 36 places are now filled and the four pots are final, nine clubs in each — the complete field chasing PSG. The seven play-off winners were slotted into Pots 3 and 4 by coefficient: Bodo/Glimt and Fenerbahce landed in Pot 3, with the other five joining Pot 4.
Pot 1
| 🇫🇷 Paris Saint-Germain | France |
| 🇩🇪 Bayern Munich | Germany |
| 🇪🇸 Real Madrid | Spain |
| 🏴 Liverpool | England |
| 🇮🇹 Inter Milan | Italy |
| 🏴 Manchester City | England |
| 🏴 Arsenal | England |
| 🇪🇸 Barcelona | Spain |
| 🇪🇸 Atletico Madrid | Spain |
Pot 2
| 🇩🇪 Borussia Dortmund | Germany |
| 🇮🇹 Roma | Italy |
| 🇵🇹 Sporting CP | Portugal |
| 🏴 Aston Villa | England |
| 🇵🇹 Porto | Portugal |
| 🏴 Manchester United | England |
| 🇧🇪 Club Brugge | Belgium |
| 🇪🇸 Real Betis | Spain |
| 🇳🇱 PSV Eindhoven | Netherlands |
Pot 3
| 🇳🇱 Feyenoord | Netherlands |
| 🇫🇷 Lille | France |
| 🇳🇴 Bodo/Glimt | Norway |
| 🇮🇹 Napoli | Italy |
| 🇩🇪 RB Leipzig | Germany |
| 🇪🇸 Villarreal | Spain |
| 🇹🇷 Fenerbahce | Turkey |
| 🇺🇦 Shakhtar Donetsk | Ukraine |
| 🇹🇷 Galatasaray | Turkey |
Pot 4
| 🇨🇿 Slavia Prague | Czechia |
| 🇸🇰 Slovan Bratislava | Slovakia |
| 🇩🇪 Stuttgart | Germany |
| 🇬🇷 AEK Athens | Greece |
| 🇦🇹 LASK | Austria |
| 🇮🇹 Como | Italy |
| 🇫🇷 Lens | France |
| 🇳🇴 Viking | Norway |
| 🇦🇿 Sabah | Azerbaijan |
How the Final Places Were Decided
Tuesday’s second legs delivered three qualifiers and one spectacular collapse. Bodo/Glimt swatted aside NEC Nijmegen 3-0 in the Arctic Circle, the tie effectively over inside three minutes when the visiting goalkeeper was dismissed for handling outside his area.
Sabah, formed only in 2017, became the first Azerbaijani side since Qarabag to reach the competition proper, overturning a first-leg deficit in Baku with a 5-2 extra-time win over Hapoel Be’er Sheva. LASK went further still: four goals down on aggregate inside half an hour against Celtic, the Austrians scored five unanswered, forced extra time with a stoppage-time header and won the tie outright. Celtic drop into the Europa League — the fate awaiting all seven beaten play-off sides.
The remaining four ties, every one of them level after the first leg, were settled on Wednesday night. Fenerbahce eliminated Lyon to claim the headline scalp, keeping the French side out of the Champions League and securing Turkey a second place in the draw. AEK Athens saw off Levski Sofia, Viking edged out Dinamo Zagreb, and Slovan Bratislava came through against Celje.
Lyon, Levski, Dinamo Zagreb and Celje join Celtic, NEC and Hapoel Be’er Sheva in the Europa League league phase.
Debutants, Returning Names and National Quotas
Como are the standout newcomer among the clubs that qualified directly, reaching this stage for the first time in their history. Sabah are the story from the play-off route, a club barely a decade old carrying Azerbaijan back into the competition. Manchester United, Europa League winners Aston Villa, Roma, Real Betis, Lille and Shakhtar Donetsk are all back after a spell away, while AEK Athens and Fenerbahce return through qualifying.
England and Spain again lead the field with five clubs apiece. Germany and Italy have four each. France stay on three — PSG, Lille and Lens — after Lyon’s exit, the result that simultaneously handed Turkey a second representative in Fenerbahce alongside Galatasaray. Portugal, the Netherlands and Norway are also double-represented, Bodo/Glimt and Viking giving Norway two clubs in the league phase.
Belgium, Ukraine, Czechia, Slovakia, Greece, Austria and Azerbaijan each have a single entrant — and under the draw’s country restriction, none of those clubs can be paired with a compatriot.
How Knockout Qualification Works
All 36 clubs sit in a single table, three points for a win and one for a draw. The top eight go straight into the round of 16, while anyone finishing 25th or lower is out of Europe altogether, with no consolation route into the Europa League.
The 16 clubs in between contest a two-legged knockout play-off. Ninth to 16th are seeded and drawn against the sides finishing 17th to 24th, holding home advantage in the return leg. The eight winners then face a top-eight finisher in the last 16 for a quarter-final place.
League Phase Match Dates
Matchday 1 lands a week earlier than last season, and a month passes before Matchday 2 to accommodate an extended international break. The scheduling settles into a regular rhythm from there.
| Matchday 1 | September 8-10, 2026 |
| Matchday 2 | October 13/14, 2026 |
| Matchday 3 | October 20/21, 2026 |
| Matchday 4 | November 3/4, 2026 |
| Matchday 5 | November 24/25, 2026 |
| Matchday 6 | December 8/9, 2026 |
| Matchday 7 | January 19/20, 2027 |
| Matchday 8 | January 27, 2027 |
Knockout Phase Dates
| Knockout Phase Play-offs | February 16/17 and 23/24, 2027 |
| Round of 16 | March 9/10 and 16/17, 2027 |
| Quarter-finals | April 6/7 and 13/14, 2027 |
| Semi-finals | April 27/28 and May 4/5, 2027 |
| Final | June 5, 2027 |
UEFA has yet to confirm a date for the knockout-phase play-off draw.
Where Is the 2027 Final?
Madrid stages the showpiece for the third time since 2010, at Atletico Madrid’s Estadio Metropolitano. The ground has hosted one Champions League final before, the cagey 2019 all-English affair that Liverpool won 2-0 against Tottenham Hotspur.
Can PSG Make It Three?
Luis Enrique’s side arrive as the team everyone else is measured against. After dismantling Inter 5-0 in 2025, PSG retained the trophy in Budapest by beating Arsenal on penalties following a 1-1 draw, becoming only the second club to defend the title since the 1992 rebrand.
A third in a row would match Real Madrid’s 2016-18 run, the only three-peat of the modern era — and Real themselves are among the obstacles, rebuilt this summer under Jose Mourinho in his second spell at the Bernabeu. Add an Arsenal squad still smarting from Budapest and a Barcelona side chasing the last step, and the 72nd season of Europe’s premier club competition starts to take shape on Thursday.
Stay with TipsGG for draw results, match previews, and analysis throughout the competition.