Barcelona are set to discover who they will face in the 2025-26 Champions League with the draw set to be made at 6pm CET (12pm ET) on Thursday, August 28, 2025 in Monaco.
This is the second year of the expanded Champions League format, with Barça hoping to go one better this time and reach the Final in Budapest after a heartbreaking semi-final exit last season.
This year’s UCL follows the same expanded format that was introduced last year: 36 teams are involved and each team will play eight fixtures against eight different opponents in the League Phase, which replaces the old Group Stage. Teams will play four home games and four on the road.
The top eight teams at the end of the League Phase progress automatically to the Round of 16, while those who finished from 9th to 24th will compete in a play-off to reach the Last 16. The rest are all eliminated from the tournament.
The Last 16 then sees the top eight League Phase teams take on the eight play-off winners for a place in the quarter-finals. An important change this year is that the top two seeds from the League Phase, who can only face each other in a potential Final, are guaranteed to play the second legs of all knockout rounds at home.
Barcelona are in Pot 1 and will face two teams from each pot. As usual, clubs from the same association can’t face each other so there’s no chance of the Catalans being drawn with Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, Athletic Bilbao or Villarreal. Teams also cannot face more than two teams from the same country.
**Pot 1**: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona.
**Pot 2**: Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Atlético Madrid, Benfica, Atalanta, Villarreal, Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt, Club Brugge.
**Pot 3**: Tottenham Hotspur, PSV Eindhoven, Ajax, Napoli, Sporting Lisbon, Olympiacos, Slavia Prague, Bodo/Glimt, Olympique Marseille.
**Pot 4**: Copenhagen, AS Monaco, Galatasaray, Union Saint-Gilloise, Qarabag, Athletic Bilbao, Newcastle, Pafos, Kairat Almaty.
**Matchday 1**: September 16/18
**Matchday 2**: September 30-October 1
**Matchday 3**: October 21/22
**Matchday 5**: November 25/26
**Matchday 6**: December 9/10
**Matchday 7**: January 20/21, 2026
**Matchday 8**: January 28, 2026
Well, now it’s over to you! Tell us how far you think Barca will go this season and which team will win the Champions League in the comments below!
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