The UEFA Champions League is back in a different guise. We take a look at the new group stage format, and which teams the Premier League’s contingent will want to face and who they’ll hope to avoid.
The Champions League is back. But this time, it’s different.
Looking rather more like the European Super League that we all thought had been binned, the 2024-25 Champions League group stage will follow a new format.
Much has stayed the same, though. Four Premier League teams will still compete in Europe’s biggest and best competition, and the prize on offer is still the ‘old big ears’ trophy, as well as a whole lot of kudos.
Here, we have a (quick) go at explaining the new format, and use the Opta Power Rankings to work out both the most favourable draw and the nightmare scenario for Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Aston Villa.
What’s Different in the Champions League 2024-25 Group Stage?
It’s not quite as simple as the eight groups of four we are used to seeing, but it also isn’t as complicated as it appears at first glance.
This time there are 36 teams, all of whom will be in one big Champions League group (rather than 32 teams split into eight groups).
Each team will play eight other sides – four at home and four away – so everyone plays eight games rather than six. Who everyone faces will be decided in Thursday’s draw.
The 36 teams are sorted into four pots based on their strength, using UEFA coefficients. Pot 1 is the strongest; Pot 4 is the weakest.
Champions League 2024-25 Group Stage Draw Pots
Pot 1: Real Madrid (Spa), Manchester City (Eng), Bayern Munich (Ger), Paris Saint-Germain (Fra), Liverpool (Eng), Inter Milan (Ita), Borussia Dortmund (Ger), RB Leipzig (Ger), Barcelona (Spa)
Pot 2: Bayer Leverkusen (Ger), Atlético Madrid (Spa), Atalanta (Ita), Juventus (Ita), Benfica (Por), Arsenal (Eng), Club Brugge (Bel), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukr), AC Milan (Ita)
Pot 3: Feyenoord (Ned), Sporting CP (Por), PSV Eindhoven (Ned), Dinamo Zagreb (Cro), Salzburg (Aus), Lille (Fra), Red Star Belgrade (Ser), Young Boys (Sui), Celtic (Sco)
Pot 4: Slovan Bratislava (Ska), Monaco (Fra), Sparta Prague (Cze), Aston Villa (Eng), Bologna (Ita), Girona (Spa), Stuttgart (Ger), Sturm Graz (Aus), Brest (Fra)
Every team – no matter their pot – will be drawn against two teams from each pot. The idea is that this system produces more games between teams of equal ability (more Pot 1 teams facing Pot 1 teams etc.).
There are a few rules, including that no two teams from the same country can be drawn to play one another, and no team can play more than two clubs from a single country.
Once the group stage is under way, the teams are sorted in the 36-team league by their record (like in any league system). The top eight qualify for the knockout stage, and the 16 teams who finish from ninth to 24th enter a play-off round to make the knockout stage, with the losers of those play-offs as well as the bottom 12 in the league being eliminated.
Once the play-offs have been completed, the knockout stage then looks exactly as it always has done: last 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, final.
Simple… Right?
Dream Draw for Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Aston Villa
The main result of this new format is that the best possible draw is the same for the four English sides. That’s because there are the same limits/rules on which teams Liverpool and Manchester City (Pot 1) can face as there are Arsenal (Pot 2) and Aston Villa (Pot 4).
So, which teams would represent the easiest eight opponents for the Premier League sides to face?
We can use the Opta Power Rankings to work that out objectively.
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world. Currently, Man City (rating of 100) are the rated as the best team in the world.
Borussia Dortmund (10th) and RB Leipzig (11th) are the lowest-ranked teams in Pot 1 and are therefore the easiest two teams to be drawn against. Facing those two would mean no more German teams from other pots.
Club Brugge (46th) and Shakhtar Donetsk (134th) would be the best teams to face from Pot 2. For context, Brugge are ranked between Brighton and West Ham, while Shakhtar are said to be worse than Leeds (128th).
In Pot 3, Red Star Belgrade (110th), or Crvena Zvezda as they are now known, and Young Boys (137th) are the teams to hope to face.
And in Pot 4, the English sides should want to be drawn against Sturm Graz (70th) and Slovan Bratislava (154th). Interestingly, according to the Power Rankings, there is more quality in Pot 4 than in Pot 3.
Best Possible Draw for the English sides
- Borussia Dortmund
- RB Leipzig
- Club Brugge
- Shakhtar Donetsk
- Red Star Belgrade
- Young Boys
- Sturm Graz
- Slovan Bratislava
Nightmare Draw for Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City and Aston Villa
Using the same method, we can also look at the most difficult possible draw for the English contingent.
In Pot 1, they will be hoping to avoid Real Madrid (ranked second in the world) and Inter (third), while from Pot 2, Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen (fifth) and Atalanta (13th) are the sides to steer clear of.
The highest-ranked teams in Pot 3 are Sporting CP (12th) and PSV (20th), while in Pot 4, the best teams are Monaco (18th) and Stuttgart (19th).
Worst Possible Draw for the English Sides
- Real Madrid
- Inter
- Bayer Leverkusen
- Atalanta
- Sporting CP
- PSV Eindhoven
- Monaco
- Stuttgart
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