The league phase draw for the 2026-27 Champions League campaign takes place on Thursday, 27 August at 17:00 BST in Monaco.
A total of 36 teams will enter that stage of the competition and while 29 teams qualified at the end of last season, the remaining seven places were decided by play-offs.
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In the league phase, each team will face eight different teams once, with four home matches and four away matches.
For the draw, the 36 teams will be placed into four pots with one being the highest-ranked and four being the lowest. The pot placements are based on the club’s Uefa club coefficient ranking from the five-season period ending at the conclusion of 2025-26.
Each team will face two teams from each of the four pots and cannot face a team from the same country as themselves.
Uefa announced a new rule on Wednesday that sides cannot host the same team in three successive league phases – so Liverpool will not draw Real Madrid at home and Arsenal will not travel to Inter Milan. Those fixtures could be drawn in reverse though.
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The teams who finish in the top eight will qualify for the Champions League’s round of 16. Those between ninth and 24th will enter the play-off knockout round. The 12 teams ranked between 25th and 36th will exit the competition when the league phase is concluded.
Who is in each pot?
Premier League champions Arsenal finished as runners-up to Paris St-Germain in last season’s Champions League [Getty Images]
Premier League clubs Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal all feature in pot one alongside back-to-back Champions League winners Paris St-Germain, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
Aston Villa and Manchester United both return to the Champions League this season after not featuring last term. They are in pot two with Borussia Dortmund, Roma, Sporting, Porto, Club Brugge, Real Betis and PSV Eindhoven.
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Pot three consists of Feyenoord, Lille, Bodo/Glimt, Napoli, RB Leipzig, Villarreal, Shakhtar Donetsk, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce.
Slavia Prague, VfB Stuttgart, Lask, Como, Lens, Sabah, AEK Athens, Slovan Bratislava and Viking make up pot four.
Which team is in each pot?
Pot 1
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Manchester City (England)
Pot 2
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Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
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Manchester United (England)
Pot 3
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Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
Pot 4
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Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia)
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Slavia Prague (Czech Republic)
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