The Champions League is one of the biggest soccer competitions in the world. It features top club teams competing in a knockout format, based on their performance in their country’s league system. The tournament is operated by UEFA, the European branch of soccer’s global governing body FIFA. Teams qualify through a process that includes winning the national championship and achieving a certain league ranking.
Until 2024-25, thirty-two teams qualified for the group stage of the tournament, where they were divided into eight groups of four. Those groups were then ordered by a randomized draw and a coefficient-based seeding scheme to create competitive balance. In the group stage, each team played three opponents twice — once at home and once away — in a round-robin format.
The 2024-25 season saw a revamp of the league phase, with each team now playing eight different teams in total, four at home and four away. This is to help create more sporting incentives during the league phase, where a team’s ranking can make or break their chances of reaching the knockout stages. During the league phase, teams are ranked in four pots that are ordered by a combination of their UEFA club coefficient and their placement in the previous season’s UEFA Champions League.