The draw at the Grimaldi Forum begins at 6pm local time on Thursday 27 August. Paris Saint-Germain go in as top seed after retaining the trophy in Budapest, beating Arsenal on penalties in the 2026 final on 30 May to become the first club to win Europe’s top prize in back-to-back seasons since Real Madrid’s three-in-a-row between 2016 and 2018.
They lead a Pot 1 that has barely changed from last summer. Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Manchester City, Arsenal, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid complete the top seeding band.
Each side draws two opponents from each of the four pots, playing one at home and one away, with same-nation ties blocked and no club allowed more than two rivals from any single association. In a Pot 1 stacked with former winners, even a friendly-looking draw guarantees at least two heavyweight fixtures.
Pot 2 is the group nobody wants twice
Borussia Dortmund, Roma, Sporting CP, Aston Villa, Porto, Manchester United, Club Brugge, Real Betis and PSV Eindhoven fill Pot 2. Every Pot 1 club is handed two of them, and there is no soft option in the queue.
Read also: Keeper gifts minnows a goal, then becomes Wolfsburg’s hero
Manchester United’s presence forces an awkward calculation for the English Pot 1 trio. Because same-country pairings are barred, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City are shielded from United, which frees the Old Trafford club to be pulled out against Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid or PSG.
Seven places will not settle until Wednesday night
Twenty-nine of the 36 spots are already booked. The last seven come out of the qualifying play-off second legs on Tuesday and Wednesday, before the balls are loaded into the pots in Monaco less than 24 hours later.
Confirmed for Pot 3 are Feyenoord, Lille, Napoli, RB Leipzig, Villarreal, Shakhtar Donetsk and Galatasaray. Slavia Prague and VfB Stuttgart are already locked into Pot 4, joined by Como, the only Champions League debutant in this year’s field. The remaining places will be shared between the two lower pots once the play-off winners are known.
Ties still to be settled include Celtic against LASK, Lyon against Fenerbahçe, and Bodø/Glimt against NEC Nijmegen. Winners parachute straight into the draw, losers drop into the Europa League.
Read also: Infantino in bizarre decision: Turns up at event where he was not welcome
What a top seeding actually buys
The reformatted competition rewards the top eight league-phase finishers with a direct place in the round of 16. Clubs finishing 9th to 24th enter a two-legged knockout play-off, and the bottom 12 are eliminated altogether.
For a Pot 1 side, that top-eight cushion is the real prize of seeding: the same style of tests they would meet in the knockouts, spread across the autumn instead of piled into February.
Matchday 1 runs across three nights: Tuesday 8 September, Wednesday 9 September and Thursday 10 September. The road ends at Atlético Madrid’s Metropolitano on Saturday 5 June 2027.
Read also: Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ ball sells for $3.35 million
Read also: Liam Lawson gets Red Bull redemption after shock call-up: ‘Now the world can see it too’
