Champions League 2024/25 Season Explained

Club football is back which means only one thing, the return of the UEFA Champions League. The greatest club competition in the world has kicked off but unlike other years the 2024/25 Champions League has a new format for clubs and fans to get used to. More teams, more matches all designed by UEFA to give the competition a more compelling look, with more matchups between the top sides of Europe earlier in the competition than in earlier versions of the competition. The aim, to make clubs and fans happy, and to keep any remains of the European Super League at bay. Only time will tell if it will be successful or not, but for now let’s have a look at the new format, and how it works.

What’s New?

Compared to last season’s Champions League, quite a lot has changed. The long-established Group Stage, much maligned by so many fans, is no more, and in its place, a shiny new League Phase with 36 teams instead of the 32 that were involved in the old Group Stage. Each of the 36 teams form a new single League with each team playing eight matches compared to 6 in previous campaigns. For each club 4 of the 8 matches will be at home and 4 will be away. 3 points will be awarded for a win and 1 for a draw, as usual.

The Top 8 teams at the end of each club’s 8 games will then advance automatically to the Knockout Stages, while the sides ranked 9-24 in the table after all the League Phase matches are played will enter a new Knockout Phase Play-Off round. This play-off will be played over two legs, with the eight winners joining the 8 already qualified teams in the Last 16. The bottom 12 teams in the League Phase will be eliminated completely from European football, with no access to the Europa League.

How will the Knockout Stages Work?

Firstly, in the Play-Off round teams ranked 9-16th will be seeded and drawn against the 8 teams that finish the League Phase between 17th to 24th. The eight clubs that advance through the play-off round will then be drawn against the 8 sides who finished in the Top 8 of the League Phase in the Round of 16, with these Top 8 clubs seeded. The remaining rounds then resemble what we have now, with two legged ties at the quarter-final and semi-final stages, before the Final, which this season will take place at the Allianz Arena in Munich on May 31st, 2025.

How Many Points will be needed to make the Top 24?

A new format brings new expectations for how clubs will qualify for the knockout stages of this new Champions League. The expected belief is that 16 points out of a possible 24 in the League Phase will almost guarantee a place in the Top 8, and an automatic spot in the last 16 in the new year. This should mean that the race to five wins will be the target for Europe’s top sides as they look to qualify as quickly as possible for the last 16.

In relation to teams qualifying for the Play-Off round, the expectation is that 10 points should almost guarantee a Top 24 place in the League Phase table. This means that for teams that can get off to a winning start in their first games of this year’s competition, they will probably only need another 7 points from their remaining 7 matches to make it to at least the play-off round.

Who have Celtic, and the Premier League Teams been drawn against?

As in previous years there are 4 Premier League teams in the 2024/25 Champions League, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Aston Villa. Celtic, by way of winning another Scottish title are also qualified for this season’s tournament. Celtic have struggled in Europe for several years now but should on paper at least fancy their chances of at least making the Top 24 and qualifying for the play-off round. They have been drawn to face the likes of Slovan Bratislava, Young Boys and Club Brugge at home in Celtic Park during the League phase with a trip to Zagreb to face Dinamo surely an enticing away trip as well as they look to put the 10 points together which should guarantee at least that play-off spot.

Of the EPL sides, Liverpool vs Real Madrid at Anfield, Aston Villa at home to Bayern Munich, Arsenal travelling to Milan to face Inter and Manchester City facing off against PSG in Paris are League Phase games that should certainly whet the appetite for fans as the new format gets underway.

Stay tuned to BetinIreland for more top weekly sports content.