It is still the last days of August, after the play-off round to determine the final tickets, but the draw for the 2024-2025 Champions League season may be more awaited.
Because of the changes made by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), from quantity to format. From 32 clubs like in many previous seasons, this year, the Champions League increased to 36 teams.
This year, 36 teams from 16 national federations entered the league stage.
Although only adding 4 more teams, there will be many more complicated details if organized according to the old system (group stage and then direct qualification). Therefore, UEFA has changed the organization, when switching to the "Switches model".
There is no longer a group stage, instead there will be a "league", but not all teams meet each other. Each team will have 8 matches in the league stage.
The drawing method combines manual and technology. Accordingly, the draw leaves of the 36 teams - divided into 4 seed groups, will be drawn manually and then the automated software will randomly "turn" 8 different opponents.
The draw will also determine which match will take place at home and which match will be away.
Each team will play against 2 opponents from each group in 4 seed groups, 1 at home and 1 away. The regulation is that teams will not meet opponents from the same federation and will only be drawn with a maximum of 2 teams from the same federation.
The teams will meet up to 8 opponents instead of 3 in the old group stage, and with the competition format not the first and second leg but the home and away courts randomly, the opportunity will be more open, leading to higher competitiveness, aiming for UEFA to "reduced procedural matches".
After 8 matches, the 8 highest ranked teams will go straight to the round of 16. The teams ranked from 9th to 24th will play 2 play-off rounds (the teams ranked from 9th to 16th are seeded for the draw, the teams from 17th to 24th play at home first).
Teams ranked 25th to 36th are eliminated and will not be transferred to UEFA Europa League 2024-2025.
With the top seed group including Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona, and Group 2 including Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Arsenal, AC Milan, the first phase of the season can witness big matches, such as Real Madrid, Bayern, PSG, Barelona with Juve, Milan, Arsenal; Man City, Bayern, PSG, Dortmund, Inter with Atletico...
Like previous seasons, the group stage will end in December, after which, the teams will have about 2 months of interruption before entering the knockout round.
This season, the league will only end at the end of January 2025, so there will only be a short break before the journey continues with the knockout rounds.
Competition schedule
Round 1: September 17-19, 2024
Round 2: 1-2.10.2024
Round 3: 22-23.10.2024
Round 4: 5-6.11.2024
Round 5: 26-27.11.2024
Round 6: 10-11.12.2024
Round 7: 21-22.2025
Round 8: January 29, 2025
UEFA's club-level tournaments including the Champions League, Europa League, Conference League will be on VTVcab infrastructure for 3 seasons, from 2024-2025 to 2026-2027.
