The Champions League has defined football for over seven decades, immortalizing great clubs that managed to break logic and overcome giants to win the coveted trophy. Real Madrid is the most dominant club with 15 titles, but other historic clubs like AC Milan, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool have all been part of this competition that consecrates the best teams in Europe.
Starting with the 2024-25 season, the tournament underwent a substantial overhaul. It was expanded to 36 clubs from all over the world and moved from a group-based format to a knockout phase where each club plays a total of eight matches, four home games and four away. The round of 16 features two matches, or legs, where the team that scores more goals over the two legs advances. The draw is random with association protection, meaning that teams from the same country cannot be drawn against each other.
After the knockout phase, the top eight clubs advance to the final, which is now held in Paris. The remaining teams are divided into two paths: the Champions Path and the League Path. The Champions Path contains teams that qualify as champions of their domestic league, while the League Path includes runners-up, third-placed, and fourth-placed clubs from their respective leagues. The top four clubs from each path enter the knockout phase. The other slots will be filled using a system whereby the nine teams finishing ninth through sixteenth are placed into pots based on their five-year club coefficient. A computer will then draw the pairings for each match, ensuring that all teams play an equal number of games.