Holders Real Madrid will face Liverpool away and host Borussia Dortmund in a repeat of final season’s ultimate within the league stage of the new-look Champions League, the draw for which befell on Thursday. Every crew will play eight video games in opposition to eight totally different opponents within the new format of Europe’s elite membership competitors, with all 36 golf equipment now pooled collectively into one league moderately than break up into teams. Madrid, who’ve signed France famous person Kylian Mbappe since successful a record-extending fifteenth European Cup, may also notably play AC Milan at residence and can go to Atalanta.
Real beat final season’s Europa League winners Atalanta within the UEFA Super Cup in Warsaw earlier this month.
Liverpool, who’re again within the Champions League after a one-season absence, may also notably meet Milan and tackle event debutants Girona.
However, supporters of the Anfield membership will maybe be most excited concerning the prospect of internet hosting German champions Bayer Leverkusen, coached by former Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso.
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, winners of the competitors in 2023, will play at residence to Italian champions Inter Milan and go to each Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus.
However, they have been additionally handed extra comfy opponents together with Club Brugge, Sparta Prague and Slovan Bratislava, who’ve by no means performed within the fashionable Champions League correct.
Other standout head-to-heads will embrace Bayern Munich in opposition to each PSG and Barcelona, and Arsenal in opposition to Inter and Paris.
The variety of golf equipment within the Champions League has elevated from 32 prior to now, with the 36 contributors break up into 4 seeded pots of 9 for the draw.
Every crew faces two groups from every of the 4 pots, one at residence and one away. The first matches might be performed on September 17, 18 and 19.
The two additional matchdays within the new league part will happen in January, on the finish of which the highest eight golf equipment within the 36-team classification will advance on to the final 16.
Those ranked between ninth and twenty fourth place will undergo to play a play-off spherical from which is able to emerge the remaining eight sides advancing to the final 16.
The backside 12 within the league part might be eradicated altogether, with no golf equipment parachuting down into the Europa League as prior to now.
The Europa League and third-tier Conference League, the attracts for which occur on Friday, may also now characteristic 36 golf equipment, though the latter competitors will contain solely six matchdays within the league part.
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