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The last of the 36 qualifiers for the 2026–27 Champions League league phase were confirmed on Wednesday night, with AEK Athens, Slovan Bratislava, Fenerbahçe and Viking coming through the final playoff to join the existing sides that will be competing on Europe’s biggest stage.
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LASK of Austria, Azerbaijan’s Sabah and the returning Bodø/Glimt had advanced on Tuesday, potentially mixing it with Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United or Arsenal.
This is now the third season since UEFA changed the Champions League format, doing away with the group stage and introducing a single league ladder.
Each club will face eight others between September and January, with fixture lists determined by the annual draw taking place at UEFA HQ in Nyon, Switzerland on Thursday.
2026–27 Champions League Draw Pots 1–4
The idea is relatively straightforward. There are four draw pots with nine teams in each.
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To get the eight opponents that each will face in the league phase, it is two (one home, one away) from each of these ranked pots, determined by UEFA’s coefficient points. The best nine teams are in pot one, the next best nine in pot two and so on.
You cannot be matched with a team from your own country at this stage of the competition, while UEFA has also introduced a new draw condition to help add variety to the league phase fixture list. It will be impossible for the exact same match to be played three years in a row, which means Real Madrid visiting Liverpool at Anfield is automatically off the table this time.
| Pot 1 | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paris Saint-Germain | Borussia Dortmund | Feyenoord | Slovan Bratislava |
| Bayern Munich | Roma | Lille | VfB Stuttgart |
| Real Madrid | Sporting Lisbon | Napoli | AEK Athens |
| Liverpool | Aston Villa | RB Leipzig | Como |
| Inter Milan | Porto | Villarreal | Lens |
| Manchester City | Manchester United | Shakhtar Donetsk | Sabah |
| Arsenal | Club Brugge | Galatasaray | LASK |
| Barcelona | Real Betis | Fenerbahçe | Slavia Prague |
| Atlético Madrid | PSV Eindhoven | Bodø/Glimt | Viking |
2026–27 League Phase Match Schedule
There will be 144 matches in the league phase from early September until late January. Only the top eight finishers in the final standings qualify automatically for the round of 16, with finishers from ninth down to 24th forced to contest a knockout playoff. The bottom 12 are eliminated.
| Matchday | Date |
|---|---|
| Matchday 1 | Sept. 8–10, 2026 |
| Matchday 2 | Oct. 13–14, 2026 |
| Matchday 3 | Oct. 20–21, 2026 |
| Matchday 4 | Nov. 3–4, 2026 |
| Matchday 5 | Nov. 24–25, 2026 |
| Matchday 6 | Dec. 8–9, 2026 |
| Matchday 7 | Jan. 19–20, 2027 |
| Matchday 8 | Jan. 27, 2027 |
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This story was originally published August 26, 2026 at 2:35 PM.