2025–26 UEFA Champions League league phase

The 2025–26 UEFA Champions League league phase began on 16 September 2025 and will end on 28 January 2026. A total of 36 teams are competing in the league phase to decide the 24 places in the knockout phase of the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League.

Bodø/Glimt, Kairat, Pafos and Union Saint-Gilloise made their debut appearances in the league phase/group stage, with Kairat, based in Almaty, becoming the easternmost team to ever qualify for the Champions League since the introduction of the group stage.^[1] In addition, Bodø/Glimt, based in Bodø within the Arctic Circle, became the northernmost European team to ever compete in the Champions League.^[2] This marks the first time a Norwegian team has participated in the competition proper since the 2007–08 season.^[3] This is also the first season since 2005–06 in which no Ukrainian sides qualified for the group stage/league phase.^[4]

A total of 16 national associations are represented in the league phase.

Each team will play eight matches, four at home and four away, against eight different opponents, with all 36 teams ranked in a single league table (known as the Swiss system). Teams were separated into four pots based on their 2025 UEFA club coefficients, and each team will play two teams from each of the four pots – one at home and one away. The top eight teams in the standings will receive a bye to the round of 16. The teams ranked from 9th to 24th will contest the knockout phase play-offs, with the teams ranked from 9th to 16th seeded for the draw. Teams ranked from 25th to 36th are eliminated from European competition.

Teams will be ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are equal on points upon completion of the league phase, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine their rankings:^[5]

While the league phase is in progress, teams are ranked according to criteria 1–5 only, and if still tied, are given equal ranking and sorted alphabetically. Criteria 6–10 are only used after the final matches have taken place.^[6]

1. Goal difference;
2. Goals scored;
3. Away goals scored;
4. Wins;
5. Away wins;
6. Higher number of points obtained collectively by league phase opponents;
7. Superior collective goal difference of league phase opponents;
8. Higher number of goals scored collectively by league phase opponents;
9. Lower disciplinary points total (direct red card or expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point);
10. UEFA club coefficient.

The 36 teams were divided into four pots of nine teams each, with the Champions League title holders automatically placed as the top seed of pot 1. All remaining teams were allocated to pots based on their 2025 UEFA club coefficients.^[7][8] The participants include:

• 29 teams which entered at this stage
• 7 winners of the play-off round (5 from the Champions Path, 2 from the League Path)

Notes

The draw for the league phase pairings was held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 28 August 2025, 18:00 CEST.^[9] All 36 teams were manually drawn using physical balls. For every team manually drawn, a guest on stage pressed a button for the automated software to digitally draw their opponents at random, determining which of their matches will be at home and which ones away. Each team will face two opponents from each of the four pots, one of which they will face at home and one away. Teams could not face opponents from their own association, and could only be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same association. The draw started with Pot 1, assigning opponents to all teams, one after the other, and continued with the other pots in descending order until all teams were assigned their opponents.^[10][11]

The fixture list was announced on 30 August 2025, two days after the draw.^[13][14][15] This was to ensure no calendar clashes with teams in the Europa League and Conference League playing in the same cities.

In principle, each team will not play more than two home matches or two away matches in a row, and will play one home match and one away match across both the first and last two matchdays. The matches will be played on 16–18 September (exclusive week),^{[note 1]} 30 September – 1 October, 21–22 October, 4–5 November, 25–26 November, 9–10 December 2025, 20–21 January and 28 January 2026. All matches will be played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, except for the competition's exclusive week, which also included Thursday fixtures. The scheduled kick-off times are generally 18:45 (two matches on each day) and 21:00 (remaining matches) CET/CEST. The only exception is the final matchday, where all fixtures will be played simultaneously at 21:00.^[16][5]

Times are CET or CEST,^{[note 2]} as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).