UEFA Champions League Explained: How the Tournament Works

The number of teams each association enters into the UEFA Champions League is based on UEFA coefficients of the member associations.

• The scores are made up from the results of clubs representing each association during the previous five EUFA Champions League and EUFA Europa League seasons.
• The higher the association's coefficient, the more teams can represent the association.
• Two qualification streams exist for teams that don't receive direct entry to the tournament: through a domestic league champion, and those who qualified by being 2nd through 4th in their domestic league.

... the teams are split into four different "pots" based on the following principles.

• Pot 1 contains the Champions League titleholders, the champions of the top six associations based on their EUFA coefficients.
• Plot 2, 3 and 4 contain the rest of the teams, seeded based on their previous year's EUFA club coefficients.
• Then a team is drawn from each pot until there are eight groups of four.

• The 32 teams compete in a double round-robin format or group stage.
• Group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 16, which is the first round of the knockout phase.
• Teams are ordered by points: three points for a win, one point for a tie, and no points for a loss.
• If tied on points, tie-breaking criteria apply.

Draw

A draw takes place for the round of 16. The remaining clubs are split into two pots of eight: One contains the winners of each respective group, the other the runners-up. A club is drawn from each pot to determine what the matchups would be.

Knockout-Phase Legs and Tiebreakers

Two teams are drawn together for each round. The teams play two matches, each squad playing one match at home. The group winners host the second leg in the round of 16.