The first legs were played on 5 and 6 August — and the second legs were played on 12 August 2025. The first legs were played on 22 and 23 July, and the second legs were played on 29 and 30 July 2025. Twelve of the losing teams were transferred to the Conference League Champions Path second qualifying round, and the other two losing teams (selected via a draw) were transferred to the Conference League Champions Path third qualifying round.
The period from September to January is designated for the league phase, whereas the knockout phase starts in February, predominantly featuring matches on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
Changes will be made to the access list above if the Champions League or Europa League title holders qualify for the tournament via their domestic leagues. In the 2019–20 season, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the tournament was suspended for five months. From the quarter-finals onwards, the draw was entirely random, without association protection.
The anthem’s chorus is played before each UEFA Champions League game as the two teams are lined up, as well as at the beginning and end of television broadcasts of the matches. Only one club has won all of their matches in a single tournament en route to their tournament victory, Bayern Munich in the 2019–20 season. The Portuguese coach will take charge of training as some players return on Monday, with two friendly matches already scheduled A total of 16 national associations were represented in the league phase. The draw for the second qualifying round was held on 18 June 2025. All matches in other weeks were played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays apart from Matchday 8 , Wednesday only, and the final.
- The league phase is played from September to January — while the knockout phase begins in February, with matches predominantly played on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
- The final of the tournament has been, in recent years, the most-watched annual sporting event in the world.
- In a rematch of the first final (Real Madrid faced Stade Reims at the Neckarstadion for the 1959 final), and won 2–0.
- The third-placed teams entered the Europa League’s knockout round and the fourth-placed teams were eliminated from the competition.
- LED advertising hoardings were deployed by UEFA in stadiums of knockout stage participants (including the final), starting from the 2012–13 knockout phase.
Preliminary rounds
The final of the tournament has been (in recent years), the most-watched annual sporting event in the world. The competition attracts an extensive television audience (not just in Europe), but throughout the world. If a club plays a match in a nation where the relevant sponsorship category is restricted , such as France’s alcohol advertising restriction,, then they must remove that logo from their jerseys. Since 2021, the UEFA also used Virtual Board Replacement (VBR) technology to offer region-based advertising; regional sponsors are inserted into the hoardings as shown on the broadcast feed in specific regions along with the global sponsors.
This resulted in the anthem (“house colours” of black and white or silver and a logo), and the “starball”. The complete anthem is about three minutes long, and has two short verses and the chorus. Stating that “the anthem is now almost as iconic as the trophy”, UEFA’s official website adds it is “known to set the hearts of many of the world’s top footballers aflutter”. UEFA commissioned Britten in 1992 to arrange an anthem — and the piece was performed by London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and sung by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The UEFA Champions League anthem, officially titled simply as “Champions League”, was written by Tony Britten, and is an adaptation of George Frideric Handel’s 1727 anthem Zadok the Priest , one of his Coronation Anthems,.
- Matches for the first legs occurred on July 8 and 9 (while the second legs took place on July 15 and 16), 2025.
- In the quarter-finals and semi-finals, both the exact match pairings and order of legs were predetermined based on the tournament bracket.
- Beginning with the 2024–25 season (UEFA changed the format of their three club competitions), abandoning the group stage in favour of an expanded league phase.
- During a pre-match press conference, he coined the phrase when asked about Arsenal’s trophy drought after they exited the FA Cup.
- In the 2019–20 season — due to the COVID-19 pandemic the tournament was suspended for five months.
Format
The 2026 World Cup has been hockey betting tips thrilling, dramatic and at times deeply controversial. The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament. The first legs were played on 28 and 29 April, and the second legs were played on 5 and 6 May 2026. The first legs were played on 7 and 8 April, and the second legs were played on 14 and 15 April 2026. The first legs were played on 10 and 11 March, and the second legs were played on 17 and 18 March 2026. The first legs were played on 17 and 18 February, and the second legs were played on 24 and 25 February 2026.
The jury is composed of the coaches of the clubs that participated in the group stage of the competition, as well as 55 journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) group, one from each UEFA member association. The table below does not include appearances made in the qualification stage of the competition. For example (when Rangers played French side Auxerre in the 1996–97 Champions League), they wore the logo of the holiday chain Center Parcs instead of their primary sponsor, McEwan’s Lager (both companies at the time were subsidiaries of Scottish & Newcastle).
LED advertising hoardings were deployed by UEFA in stadiums of knockout stage participants (including the final), starting from the 2012–13 knockout phase. Unlike the single main sponsor typically present in national top-flight leagues (a consortium of multinational corporations sponsors the UEFA Champions League), similar to the FIFA World Cup. In the 2019–20 season, runners-up Paris Saint-Germain gathered nearly €126.8 million in total, with €101.3 million in prize money, while tournament victor Bayern Munich earned €125.46 million, which included €112.96 million in prize funds. Whenever a club accomplished this feat, a new official trophy needed to be created for the subsequent season. Any team that secured the Champions League title three consecutive times or five times overall was granted permanent possession of the official trophy from the 1968–69 season until the 2008–09 season.
Each team played six group stage games, meeting the other three teams in its group home and away in a round-robin format. Prior to the 2024–25 season — there was a group stage of 32 teams, divided into eight groups of four. For the draw of the league phase, teams are divided into four seeding pots according to their UEFA coefficient. Teams are no longer divided into groups of four teams each but are ranked in a single table resembling the Swiss-system tournament format. The phrase was coined after a pre-match conference when he was questioned about Arsenal’s lack of a trophy after exiting the FA Cup. In 2005–06, Liverpool and Artmedia Bratislava became the first teams to reach the Champions League group stage after playing in all three qualifying rounds.
The other two are granted to the winners of a three-round qualifying tournament between ten and eleven clubs from the associations ranked 5–6 through 15 (which have qualified based upon finishing second), third or fourth in their respective national league. This marked the first time a Norwegian team participated in the competition proper since the 2007–08 season — and was also the first season since 2005–06 in which no Ukrainian sides qualified for the group stage/league phase. While only the winners of many of Europe’s national leagues can enter the competition, the top 5 leagues by coefficient provide four teams each by default, with a possibility for additional spots based on performance during the previous season. It is one of the most prestigious football tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football, played by the national league champions , and, for some nations, one or more runners-up, of their national associations.
Prize money
One “exclusive week” was held in which Thursday was also a matchday. For the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2024 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2019–20 to 2023–24. Paris Saint-Germain successfully defended the title (defeating Arsenal 4–3 on penalties after a 1–1 draw), to become the second club to win back-to-back titles in the UEFA Champions League era, matching Real Madrid’s feat in the 2016–17 edition.
The top eight teams based on the final league phase standings advanced directly to the round of 16. In the knockout phase, teams faced off against each other across two legs on a home-and-away basis, with the exception of the final, which was a single match. All teams ranked from 25th to 36th were eliminated from every competition. Competing in the knockout phase play-offs were teams ranked from 9th to 24th, with those placed from 9th to 16th seeded for the draw. Moreover — Bodø/Glimt, based in Bodø within the Arctic Circle, became the northernmost European side ever to take part in the Champions League. In their debut appearances, Bodø/Glimt, Kairat, Pafos, and Union Saint-Gilloise participated in the league phase/group stage.