AC Milan Faces New Format in UEFA Champions League Draw
AC Milan will discover their opponents for the inaugural phase of the revamped UEFA Champions League on Thursday, August 29, as the draw unfolds in Monaco ¹. This season’s competition boasts a novel format, replacing the traditional group stage with a single league phase encompassing all 36 participating teams ².
In this new format, each team will play eight matches against eight different opponents, with four home games and four away games ³. The top eight teams in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout stages, while teams finishing in ninth to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure a place in the last 16 of the competition ³.
The 36 clubs will be seeded into four pots based on their individual club coefficients at the start of the season ³. Each team will be drawn against two different teams from each pot, playing one team at home and one away ³. The draw will start with Pot 1, containing the strongest teams and current holders of the Champions League, and work down through the four pots ³.
The new draw system is expected to take around 35 minutes, the same duration as the manual draws for the previous 32-team format with a group phase and knockout stage ³. Without the bespoke software, an old-fashioned manual draw for the expanded competition would take four hours and require up to 1,000 balls and 36 glass bowls ³.
The finalised fixture list will be released on Saturday, August 31 ³. In the league phase, teams cannot face opponents from their own country and can face a maximum of two sides from the same country ³. The 2024/25 UEFA Champions League season will take place in Munich at the Allianz Arena on May 31, 2025 ³.
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