The UEFA Champions League 2024/25 will get underway next month in a completely revamped format and title-holders Real Madrid have learnt their eight opponents for the first round of the competition.
Instead of 32 teams, there will be 36 clubs participating in the UCL moving forward and the normal group stage has been replaced by the ‘league phase’, wherein each team will have to play eight games – four home, four away.
Who are Real Madrid facing?
Real Madrid were placed in Pot 1, as the top seed as they are the current champions. Barcelona, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, PSG, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund, and RB Leipzig were the other eight teams.
From this pot, the Spanish capital club have drawn Borussia Dortmund (H) and Liverpool (A).
📝✨ ¡Nuestros rivales en la @ChampionsLeague 2024/25!@adidasfootball | #UCLdraw pic.twitter.com/rj1yb3c7pL
— Real Madrid C.F. (@realmadrid) August 29, 2024
Pot 2 contained Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Atalanta, Juventus, Benfica, Arsenal, Club Brugge, Shakhtar Donetsk, and AC Milan.
Real Madrid will be facing Milan (H) and Atalanta (A) from this set of clubs.
Meanwhile, Pot 3 had Feyenoord, Sporting CP, PSV Eindhoven, GNK Dinamo, RB Salzburg, Lille, Crvena Zvezda, Young Boys, and Celtic.
From there, Los Blancos will be taking on RB Salzburg (H) and Lille (A).
At last, from Pot 4, Real Madrid will clash with Stuttgart (H) and Brest (A).
Draw process
The 36 teams have been divided into four pots of nine each based on their individual club coefficient. Real Madrid, though, were the top seed in Pot 1 thanks to them being the current Champions League title-holders.
Each club’s ball will be drawn from the pots manually and will be assigned two teams from each pot, with the draw being made at random by a designated automated software. The software will also decide which matches will be at home and which ones away.
A team cannot face another team from their own national association and cannot be drawn against more than two clubs of the same national association.
The draw started with Pot 1, assigning eight opponents to all nine teams, one after the other, and will continue with the other pots in descending order until all teams have been assigned their eight opponents.
Even though the teams know all their opponents, the fixture list with match dates and kick-off times will be elaborated afterwards and announced on Saturday, to ensure no calendar clashes with teams in the Europa League and Conference League playing in the same cities.