The Champions League is a competition among the world’s best soccer clubs. It takes more than talent to win, though; it also takes heart and a little bit of luck.
It used to be that only teams who won their national championship qualified for the tournament, but UEFA decided to revamp it in 1992 and introduced a group stage. From 2003-04 through 2024-25, thirty-two teams were split into eight groups of four and played each other twice home and away, for a total of six games each. The team that scored more goals over the two legs—or in other words, aggregate goals—advanced to the next round.
After the group phase, the tournament continued in a knockout format, with quarter-finals and semi-finals (both two legged) before the final at a neutral venue chosen prior to the season. The final is traditionally held in late May or early June.
Currently, the top eight clubs in each of Europe’s top tiers automatically qualify for the group stage. The remaining clubs participate in a four-round qualifying tournament, with champions from associations that have higher coefficients receiving byes to later rounds and the remaining places granted to winners of a three-round playoff tournament between ten and eleven clubs from associations ranked fifth through to fifteenth.
The top eight from the league phase—in addition to the defending champions—are seeded in the knockout play-off draw, and will be drawn against one of the clubs that finished ninth through to 16th, which were placed in a separate, two-legged play-off.