MONACO — Liverpool was drawn to face champions Real Madrid when they return to the UEFA Champions League, which has been expanded to a 36-team league format.
The revamped competition has also set up other intriguing match ups, including a rematch of last year’s final between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid, while Manchester City is slated to battle Paris St Germain.
In this year’s men’s tournament, teams will compete in eight fixtures during the ‘league phase,’ marking a significant departure from the traditional group stage format.
The draw, held in Monaco, featured special guests Cristiano Ronaldo and Gianluigi Buffon, Reuters reported.
The dates and times for each team’s fixtures will be announced on Saturday.
The 2024-25 edition of the UEFA Champions League will follow a new format, following is an explainer of how it will work:
All teams will compete in a single 36-team league, replacing the previous format of eight groups with four teams each.
In the new league phase, teams will play eight matches instead of facing three opponents twice. They will play against eight different teams, with half of the games at home and half away.
The top eight teams will advance directly to the Round of 16, while those finishing from ninth to 24th will enter a two-legged knockout play-off for a chance to secure a spot in the next stage.
Teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated and will not advance to the Europa League.
From the Round of 16 onward, the Champions League will revert to its traditional format, with the final held at a neutral location.
Teams are divided into four pots for the draw based on their club coefficient.
Each team will play against two teams from each pot, with one match held at home and the other away.
Teams will be restricted from facing rivals from their own country and will be limited to playing against only two clubs from any single country.
Under the new format, the total number of matches will rise from 125 to 189, with each team playing between eight and 17 games, and the league phase extending until the end of January rather than concluding before Christmas.
The traditional 32-team group stage played each season since 2003 was abolished in favor of a single-standings league. Now, 36 teams each will play eight games against eight different opponents through January.
The top eight in the standings in January go direct to the round of 16 in March. Teams ranked ninth to 24th go into the knockout playoffs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
Man City’s away games at PSG and Juventus were balanced by one of the easier slates of home games: against Club Brugge, Feyenoord and Sparta Prague. The English champion also must travel to Slovan Bratislava.
Bayern also will host Barcelona, which it routed 8-2 in the quarterfinals of the 2020 title run, and travel to Aston Villa, the surprise winner of their 1982 European Cup final.
Liverpool will host Bayer Leverkusen, the German champion coached by its former star midfielder Xabi Alonso, in a standout match of the expanded league phase.
Leverkusen will host city rivals Inter Milan and AC Milan, and also travel to Atletico Madrid.
The new-style draw was made at a gala ceremony in a beach-side concert hall in Monaco with soccer greats Cristiano Ronaldo and Gianluigi Buffon.
After each team´s ball was picked by Buffon from one of four bowls – seeded according to results in the past five years of European club competitions – Ronaldo theatrically pressed a button for the reveal of how a software program allocated two opponents from each of the four seeding pots.
The new format was created by UEFA under pressure from influential clubs who wanted more guaranteed games and a wider variety of high-profile opponents.
The new league phase will have 144 total games compared to 96 in the group stage last season. By also adding a new knockout playoffs round in February, the competition overall has 189 games instead of 125.
The 36 teams will share a UEFA prize money fund of at least 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion), a raise of 25% on last season.
