Champions League draw: Liverpool, Arsenal, City and Villa learn their opponents in league phase

Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Celtic have learned who they will face as part of the reformed league phase of the Champions League.

The 2024/25 Champions League draw took place on Thursday evening, with the revamped format of the competition including 36 teams.

We have given you a detailed explanation of how the new ‘Swiss model’ of the Champions League works, so check that out if you are still confused.

👉 READ: How does the new Champions League ‘Swiss model’ format for 24/25 work?

But in short, all 36 teams will form a single league, with each side having four home matches and four away.

Once each team has played their respective eight games, the top eight in the 36-side league will automatically progress into the last 16 of the competition. The teams placed from 9th to 24th will be involved in a round of play-offs. These two-legged ties will decide the remaining eight teams to advance into the knockout stages.

It’s also worth noting that while the order of the fixtures has been announced today, the teams in the competition will not be informed of the dates of their fixtures until Saturday.

The teams were separated into four pots. Man City and Liverpool were in pot one, while Arsenal were in pot two and Aston Villa were in pot four with Celtic.

A team’s placing in a pot is not as important as it once was because – as you will notice below – each side will face two opponents from the same pot, with the idea being to ensure there are more competitive matches during the early stages of the competition.

We won’t bother listing every match in the league phase, but with the admin out of the way, below is the list of opponents awaiting Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Celtic.

👉 F36Skive… Can you name all 23 Champions League winners?

Man City group phase matches : Inter Milan (home), PSG (away), Club Bruges (home), Juventus (away), Feyenoord (home), Sporting Lisbon (away), Sparta Prague (home), Slovan Bratislava (away).

Liverpool group phase matches : Real Madrid (home), Leipzig (away), Bayer Leverkusen (home), AC Milan (away), Lille (home), PSV (away), Bologna (home) and Girona (away).

Arsenal group phase matches : PSG (home), Inter Milan (away), Shakhtar Donetsk (home), Atalanta (away), Dinamo Zagreb (home), Sporting Lisbon (away), Monaco (home), Girona (away).

Aston Villa group phase matches: Bayern Munich (home), Leizpig (away), Juventus (home), Club Bruges (away), Celtic (home), Young Boys (away), Bologna (home) and Monaco (away).

Celtic group phase matches: Aston Villa (away), Leipzig (home), Borussia Dortmund (away), Club Bruges (home), Atalanta (away), Young Boys (home), Dinamo Zagreb (away), Slovan Bratislava (home).