Manchester City have learned their eight opponents for the opening stage of the Champions League after the draw was held on Thursday.
The Champions League will look a whole lot different this season and Manchester City will play more games against more teams than they are used to in the competition.
The traditional Champions League group stage has been scrapped from 2024/25 onwards, with teams no longer facing three opponents home and away to determine who makes the knock-out stages.
Instead, all 36 teams – an increase from 32 – will be placed in the same league table, with the clubs facing eight different teams just once.
Now Pep Guardiola knows which eight teams his side will be facing in the newly expanded opening stage and it looks set to be a gruelling campaign.
- Champions League 2024/25: New changes, league phase draw details, who Man City will face, full schedule
Man City Champions League league phase opponents
For the new draw, the 36 teams were divided into four pots of nine and each team was drawn against two clubs from every pot, including the one they were in. They will play four games at home and four away, one each from every pot.
That means City have been handed some very difficult fixtures as they will face Inter at home in a rematch of the gruelling 2023 final and Paris Saint-Germain away from Pot 1.
They will also play Club Brugge, Feyenoord and Sparta Prague at home and go away to Italian giants Juventus, Portuguese champions Sporting in two tricky trips and Slovan Bratislava.
The order of the fixtures will not be announced until Saturday.
Man City Champions League fixture schedule
These dates are when City will play their fixtures but they don’t know yet which teams they will be facing when.
- Matchday 1: September 17/18/19
- Matchday 2: October 1/2
- Matchday 3: October 22/23
- Matchday 4: November 5/6
- Matchday 5: November 26/27
- Matchday 6: December 10/11
- Matchday 7: January 21/22
- Matchday 8: January 29
New Champions League format explained
Though all 36 teams in this season’s edition of the Champions League are in the same table, they will not all play against one another.
However, they are still directly competing against each other for a place in the knock-out stages.
At the end of the league phase, the sides that finish in the top eight places will qualify automatically for the last 16 – where the tournament continues as normal.
However, there will be a second chance for the sides that finish from 9th-24th to still make it through.
Those 16 teams will compete in a two-legged knockout round play-off, with sides finishing 9th-16th being seeded to face those that finished 17th-24th.
Despite the dramatic increase in fixtures, only eight teams, those who finish 25th and below, will be automatically eliminated from the tournament.
