LIVERPOOL have been handed a nightmare draw for this season’s Champions League.
But Arsenal, on the other hand, have been handed a doozy.
The Gunners and the Reds – along with Aston Villa and Manchester City – learned their fates for the 2024/25 instalment of Europe‘s elite club competition on Thursday evening.
EPAThe draw for the 2024/25 Champions League draw has taken place[/caption]
AFPArsenal, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Manchester City have learned their fates for this year’s instalment of the competition[/caption]
And Liverpool fans will be cursing the supercomputer for handing them arguably the toughest draw of the competition.
Arne Slots troops face tough trips to Germany, Italy and Spain to take on Serie A, La Liga and Bundesliga big boys Bayer Leverkusen, AC Milan and Real Madrid.
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The 2024/25 instalment of the tournament kicks off the new format for Europe‘s elite club competition – which now features 36 teams instead of 32.
The well-known group stage format has been replaced by a SINGLE league format in which teams will play eight fixtures.
Each side will face two teams from the four-seeded pots.
In the new format, teams will play four games at home and four away.
The top eight teams will automatically secure qualification for the last 16, while the ninth to 24th-placed sides will take part in a two-legged playoff.
Teams who finished in 25th place and below will be eliminated from the tournament and WON’T drop into the Europa League.
Scroll down to see the Premier League quartet’s fixtures for the competition.
Manchester City’s fixtures
Arsenal’s Champions League fixtures
Liverpool’s Champions League fixtures
Aston Villa’s Champions League fixtures
Arsenal reached the quarter-finals of the tournament last season but were dumped out by Bayern Munich 3-2 on aggregate.
Manchester City, meanwhile, were also dumped out at the quarter-final stage.
The Premier League champions were eliminated by last season’s tournament winners Real Madrid on penalties after drawing 4-4 on aggregate.
Aston Villa and Liverpool, meanwhile, weren’t in Europe’s elite club competition last season.
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New Champions League format
Each club will play eight matches in the opening phase – against seeded opposition, in a system designed to ensure that teams play opponents of similar difficulty.
The top eight teams in the “final” table will automatically go through to the last 16, where they will be joined by the eight play-off winners of ties between the sides placed ninth to 24th in the table.
Despite there being just eight matches in the opening phase, European matches will be spread over 10 midweek slots.
The new Champions League format also sees the implication of two additional qualifying spots.
They will be awarded to the nations that are top of the “country coefficient” chart each season.
Villa, who won the old European Cup in 1982, reached the semis of the Europa Conference League last season.
Unai Emery‘s troops, who sealed UCL qualification with a fourth-placed Premier League finish, were eliminated from the Conference League by Greek giants Olympiacos
Six-time winners Liverpool played in the Europa League last season and were jettisoned out of the competition at the quarter-final stage by tournament winners Atalanta.
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