2025–26 UEFA Champions League league phase
The 2025–26 UEFA Champions League league phase began on 16 September 2025 and ended on 28 January 2026. A total of 36 teams competed in the league phase to decide the 24 places in the knockout phase of the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League.
Bodø/Glimt, Kairat, Pafos and Union Saint-Gilloise made their debut appearances in the league phase/group stage, with Kairat, based in Almaty, becoming the easternmost team to ever qualify for the Champions League since the introduction of the group stage. In addition, Bodø/Glimt, based in Bodø within the Arctic Circle, became the northernmost European team to ever compete in the Champions League. This marked the first time a Norwegian team participated in the competition proper since the 2007–08 season. This was also the first season since 2005–06 in which no Ukrainian sides qualified for the group stage/league phase. After being drawn to play away against Sporting CP, Kairat broke the record for the longest trip in UEFA competitions, travelling from Almaty to Lisbon.
A total of 16 national associations were represented in the league phase.
Format
Each team played eight matches, four at home and four away, against eight different opponents, with all 36 teams ranked in a single league table. Teams were separated into four pots based on their 2025 UEFA club coefficients, and each team played two teams from each of the four pots – one at home and one away. The top eight teams in the standings received a bye to the round of 16. The teams ranked from 9th to 24th will contest the knockout phase play-offs, with the teams ranked from 9th to 16th seeded for the draw. Teams ranked from 25th to 36th were eliminated from European competition.Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to points. If two or more teams were equal on points upon completion of the league phase, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine their rankings:While the league phase was in progress, teams were ranked according to criteria 1–5 only, and if still tied, were given equal ranking and sorted alphabetically. Criteria 6–10 were only used after the final matches took place.
- Goal difference;
- Goals scored;
- Away goals scored;
- Wins;
- Away wins;
- Higher number of points obtained collectively by league phase opponents;
- Superior collective goal difference of league phase opponents;
- Higher number of goals scored collectively by league phase opponents;
- Lower disciplinary points total ;
- UEFA club coefficient.
Teams and seeding
The 36 teams were divided into four pots of nine teams each, with the Champions League title holders automatically placed as the top seed of pot 1. All remaining teams were allocated to pots based on their 2025 UEFA club coefficients. The participants included:- 29 teams which entered at this stage
- 7 winners of the play-off round
| Key to colours |
| Teams ranked 1 to 8 advanced to the round of 16 as a seeded team |
| Teams ranked 9 to 16 advanced to the knockout phase play-offs as a seeded team |
| Teams ranked 17 to 24 advanced to the knockout phase play-offs as an unseeded team |
'''Notes''' DrawThe draw for the league phase pairings was held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 28 August 2025, 18:00 CEST. All 36 teams were manually drawn using physical balls. For every team manually drawn, a guest on stage pressed a button for the automated software to digitally draw their opponents at random, determining which of their matches will be at home and which ones away. Each team will face two opponents from each of the four pots, one of which they will face at home and one away. Teams could not face opponents from their own association, and could only be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same association. The draw started with Pot 1, assigning opponents to all teams, one after the other, and continued with the other pots in descending order until all teams were assigned their opponents.League phase tableResults summaryMatchesThe fixture list was announced on 30 August 2025, two days after the draw. This was to ensure no calendar clashes with teams in the Europa League and Conference League playing in the same cities.In principle, each team did not play more than two home matches or two away matches in a row, and played one home match and one away match across both the first and last two matchdays. The matches were played on 16–18 September, 30 September – 1 October, 21–22 October, 4–5 November, 25–26 November, 9–10 December 2025, 20–21 January and 28 January 2026. All matches were played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, except for the competition's exclusive week, which also included Thursday fixtures. The scheduled kick-off times were generally 18:45 and 21:00 CET/CEST. The only exception was the final matchday, where all fixtures were played simultaneously at 21:00. Times are CET or CEST, as listed by UEFA. Matchday 1-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Matchday 2-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Matchday 3-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Matchday 4-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Matchday 5-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Matchday 6-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Matchday 7-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Matchday 8-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- |