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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. It is where the 36 league phase clubs learn the eight opponents standing between them and the knockout rounds, and where the last four qualifiers find out their fate less than a day after surviving the play-offs. Below: the timings, the 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 come through qualifying, which finishes the night before the draw.
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
Thirty-two places are already filled, with Pots 1 and 2 locked in. Pots 3 and 4 stay fluid until the last play-off ties are done, since the qualifiers are slotted in by coefficient rather than by a fixed rule — treat any complete list circulating before Thursday morning as provisional.
Pot 1
| Paris Saint-Germain |
| Bayern Munich |
| Real Madrid |
| Liverpool |
| Inter Milan |
| Manchester City |
| Arsenal |
| Barcelona |
| Atletico Madrid |
Pot 2
| Aston Villa |
| Manchester United |
| Borussia Dortmund |
| Roma |
| Sporting |
| Porto |
| Club Brugge |
| PSV Eindhoven |
| Real Betis |
Pot 3
| Feyenoord |
| Lille |
| Napoli |
| RB Leipzig |
| Villarreal |
| Shakhtar Donetsk |
| Galatasaray |
Pot 4
| Slavia Prague |
| Stuttgart |
| Como |
| Lens |
Awaiting Placement in Pot 3 or Pot 4
| Bodo/Glimt | Through, 6-1 on aggregate |
| LASK Linz | Through, 5-4 on aggregate |
| Sabah | Through, 6-4 on aggregate |
| Lyon vs Fenerbahce | Level at 1-1, second leg August 26 |
| Viking vs Dinamo Zagreb | Level at 2-2, second leg August 26 |
| Celje vs Slovan Bratislava | Level at 1-1, second leg August 26 |
| AEK Athens vs Levski Sofia | Level at 0-0, second leg August 26 |
How the Final Places Are Being 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 four ties listed above are settled on Wednesday night, every one of them level from the first leg.
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. Manchester United, Europa League winners Aston Villa, Roma, Real Betis, Lille and Shakhtar Donetsk are all back after a spell away.
England again leads the field with five clubs, matched by Spain. Germany and Italy have four apiece. France’s three becomes four if Lyon see off Fenerbahce — a result that would simultaneously deny Turkey a second representative.
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.