All the teams taking part in the 2024/25 Champions League league phase

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36 clubs will fight for the trophyProfimedia

After Wednesday's matches of its final preliminary round, the Champions League filled the last four of 36 places in the new season's regular season. For the first time, the competition will be played without the traditional groups of four, which will be replaced by one large group.

All teams will also now face eight games instead of six, each time against a different opponent. The Czech Republic will be represented by Sparta Prague, while Slovakia will be represented by Slovan Bratislava after 14 years.

The Champions League draw

The fixtures will be drawn on Thursday, August 29th at 18:00 CET.

The draw will start with nine teams from the first pot according to the club coefficient. They are Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, PSG, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Dortmund, Leipzig and FC Barcelona. Using the software, each of these nine teams will be randomly assigned two opponents from baskets one to four within seconds, and it will also be instantly known in which matches a team will have home advantage.

The process will then continue in the same manner with baskets two through four. Two limitations have been made for the automated software. Clubs cannot be assigned an opponent from their own country in the league phase. In addition, each club is allowed to play a maximum of two opponents from the same national association.

In addition, the software proactively checks that there cannot be a "deadlock" and that there remain opponents for teams drawn later despite these two restrictions.