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The 2024 edition of the new single-group Champions League revealed in real time: here are the eight matches that the five Italian teams will face
There are now just a few hours left ( and the names of the last four qualified ) until the start of the 2024/2025 edition of the Champions League , the top continental tournament that UEFA has decided to renew and expand to meet the demands of the clubs and curb centrifugal forces. The first act, next Thursday, will be the draw , which will define the framework for the first phase of the competition.
Champions League draw, the new format
With the groups abandoned, the new format provides for the 36 admitted teams - including five Italians, Inter, Milan, Juventus , Atalanta and Bologna - to each play eight games against different opponents. Those who occupy the first eight places in the single ranking will qualify for the round of 16, while another eight teams will emerge from the play-offs (first and second legs) among those classified from ninth to 24th place. And the draw , which will be held at 6 pm on Thursday 29 August in Monte Carlo, will be an eagerly awaited and spectacular moment of the new format: the 36 teams will be divided into four pots of nine based on the ranking of each established at the start of the season, with the first pot also including the reigning champion team, Real Madrid . For Italy there will be only Inter , while all the others will be in the second except for Bologna, certainly included in the fourth. The draw will be automated, abandoning the old system of balls, because the manual operation would have required at least a thousand of them, with long times for its completion.
Champions League, the draw rules
Once the pots have been established, each team will be drawn against two opponents from each of the four pots, playing one home game and one away game, and this too will be determined by the draw. The complexity of the system has convinced UEFA to use the services of two companies to automate the process. Each of the 36 clubs, starting with those in pot 1 and then going down to pot 4, will see their ball drawn randomly from the pot and then their opponents displayed in real time. The computer will have to respect two criteria: a club cannot play against a team from the same league, nor against more than two teams from the same league. For example, Juve cannot face Atalanta , nor three Premier League clubs . The draw is expected to last 35 minutes , more or less as long as in previous years, but the fixture list for this phase - which will begin with the first round on 17-19 September - will only be available two days after the draw, on Saturday 31 August.
The four bands at the draw
As usual, the teams were divided into four pots. Among the Italian teams, only Inter is in first, while Milan, Juventus and Atalanta are in second and Bologna in fourth.
First pot: Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, PSG, Liverpool, INTER , Borussia Dortmund, Leipzig, Barcelona.
Second pot: Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, ATALANTA , JUVENTUS , Benfica, Arsenal, Brugge, Shakhtar, MILAN
Third pot: Feyenoord, Sporting Lisbon, PSV, Dinamo Zagreb, Celtic, Salzburg, Lille, Young Boys, Red Star
Fourth pot: Monaco, Aston Villa, BOLOGNA , Brest, Girona, Stuttgart, Sturm Graz, Sparta Prague, Slovan Bratislava
The draw: time and where to watch it
The 2024/25 Champions League draw is scheduled for Thursday 29 August at 18:00 and can be followed on Sky Sport channel 201. It will be available on streaming on the Sky Go, Now TV and Prime Video platforms. UEFA will also broadcast the event live for free and free-to-air on its website and YouTube channel.
How it changes from the knockout stage
Different, but much less complicated, draws will take place for the subsequent stages. For the round of 16 , the clubs that finish first to eighth in the single group will be seeded and will play the winners of the play-offs from the knockout phase, with the advantage of the second leg at home. The seeding position determines each club's path in the knockout phase, from the play-offs to the final on 31 May , and the higher a team finishes in the single group, the higher its seeding position will be.