Champions League draw set for Monaco as PSG eye historic three-peat

Europe's premier club competition is gearing up for another season, and the road to the 2026-27 UEFA Champions League final formally begins on Thursday evening with the draw for the league phase at Monaco's Grimaldi Forum. The ceremony is scheduled to start at 6pm local time (17:00 GMT), with 36 clubs set to discover their schedules for a campaign that stretches from September through January before knockout football takes over.

Defending champions Paris Saint-Germain arrive as the team to beat. Having lifted the trophy in each of the past two seasons, the French giants are chasing a third consecutive crown, a feat that would further cement their dominance of the continental game. Standing in their way are heavyweight contenders including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool and Bayern Munich, all eager to end PSG's reign.

This year marks the third season under the competition's revamped format, which replaced the traditional group stage with a single league table. Rather than facing three opponents home and away, each club now meets eight different sides during the league phase — two drawn from each of four seeding pots, with half of those matches played at home and the other half on the road.

Most of the field earned their places through domestic performance. Twenty-nine of the 36 participants secured qualification by finishing high enough in their national leagues, while seven berths were decided through a qualifying gauntlet that began earlier this month and wraps up barely a day before the draw itself.

Bodo/Glimt, LASK and Sabah were the latest clubs to punch their tickets, emerging from recent qualifying rounds. On Wednesday, eight remaining hopefuls will contest the final four spots, meaning the last pieces of the puzzle will fall into place less than 24 hours before the balls are drawn in Monaco. Those survivors will slot into the open positions in Pot 3, reserved for the League Path winner, and Pot 4, which awaits the three Champions Path victors.

Among the confirmed names are familiar English quartet Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool, alongside Manchester United's return to the competition. Spanish representation runs deep with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal and Real Betis, while Italy contributes Inter Milan, Napoli, Roma and debutant Como. German entrants include Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and VfB Stuttgart, with Portuguese duo Porto and Sporting CP, Dutch pair PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord, French side Lens, Lille, Galatasaray, Shakhtar Donetsk, Slavia Prague and Club Brugge completing the lineup.

Once the draw is complete, attention turns to the pitch. Matchday 1 opens the league phase on September 8-10, with subsequent rounds spread across midweek slots in October, November and December before the campaign resumes after the winter break on January 19-20 and concludes on January 27.

From there, the stakes rise sharply. Knockout playoffs are slated for February 16-17 and 23-24, followed by the round of 16 in March, quarterfinals in April, and semifinals spanning late April into early May. The showpiece final arrives on June 5 at the Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid, home ground of Atletico Madrid.

PSG will defend the trophy they retained in dramatic fashion this past spring. In the final at Budapest's Puskas Arena on May 30, Luis Enrique's side edged Arsenal 4-3 on penalties after a tense 1-1 stalemate through extra time. Gunners defender Gabriel skied his spot kick over goalkeeper Matvey Safonov's crossbar, sealing PSG's place in history as the first club to win back-to-back titles since Real Madrid's three-year run between 2016 and 2018.

Momentum has hardly faded since. Earlier this month, PSG claimed the UEFA Super Cup for a second straight year, defeating Aston Villa 2-1 courtesy of Desire Doue's second-half effort. The France winger latched onto Ousmane Dembele's pass and finished in the 61st minute, though only after video review overturned an initial offside flag that had caught Matty Cash marginally keeping him onside.

With the pots settled and the final qualifiers about to emerge, Thursday's draw will map out the first leg of every contender's journey toward Madrid.