UEFA Champions League: New 2024/25 format explained

The UEFA Champions League begins to heat up in the fall, and this year, there's a new format replacing the group stage.

Here, we have all you need to know about the UEFA Champions League league phase, which takes place for the first time beginning in September.

What is the new UEFA Champions League format?

The new UEFA Champions League format is called the league phase.

In the league phase, 36 clubs participate and each team plays eight games.

Teams do not play each other twice as they did in the old format. Instead, each team is put into one of four pots based on how they performed last season.

Each team plays two teams from each pot. One opponent from any given pot will be played against at home, while the other will be played against on the road.

The standings work like a normal league. Each win earns a team three points and a draw earns a team one point.

After all each team plays its eight games, the top eight in the league will advance to the round of 16, while teams in ninth to 24th will play an extra knockout round to qualify for the last 16.

The teams who finish first through eighth will be seeded for the round of 16 draw, while the teams who advance from the extra knockout round will be unseeded. Each seeded team is drawn against an unseeded team.

How does the new UEFA Champions League format differ from previous years?

The new UEFA Champions League format is called the league phase, and it replaces the group stage.

In previous years, 32 teams would take part in the group stage. The teams would be grouped into eight groups of four, and to balance out the quality of each group, the teams were sorted using factors including each team's domestic league and previous performances.

This year, 36 teams will participate and teams will play eight games against eight different opponents, and the 36 teams are grouped into one league table.

As mentioned, the teams are split into four pots based on the previous season's performance among other factors, and each team faces two teams from each pot - one at home and one away.

The four extra slots added in the new format are allocated in three different ways.

One slot is given to the third-placed team in UEFA's fifth-ranked league, another slot can be won by teams competing in the Champions path of the qualifying rounds, and the third and fourth slots are given to the countries whose teams performed the best in the previous season's UEFA competitions.

France earned the first extra slot while Germany and Italy earned the third and fourth extra slots this year.

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