Determining 29 teams to go straight to the group stage of the 2025-2026 Champions League

Champions League - Ảnh 1. — English football has up to 6 representatives in the Champions League next season, including Tottenham - the team that just won the Europa League - Photo: REUTERS

Specifically, among the 29 teams that entered the group stage directly, English football dominated with 6 representatives, followed by Spain (5 places).

According to UEFA regulations, the top two national championships in Europe (according to the UEFA rankings) will have 5 places in the Champions League. England and Spain share the first 2 positions, so each country has 5 representatives in the Champions League.

However, because Tottenham won the Europa League, English football has a 6th representative.

Thus, England is the first football nation to have 6 teams participating in the Champions League in one season. The 6 representatives of English football include: Liverpool (Premier League champion), Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea, Newcastle and Tottenham.

The five Spanish clubs participating in the Champions League are Barca, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao and Villarreal.

After England and Spain are Italy and Germany, each with four teams participating in the Champions League. The Italian representatives include Napoli, Inter Milan, Atalanta, and Juventus. Meanwhile, Bayern Munich, Leverkusen, Dortmund, and Frankfurt are the German representatives.

France has 3 teams that go straight to the group stage: PSG, Marseille and Monaco. Meanwhile, PSV Eindhoven and Ajax are the 2 representatives of Dutch football.

Portugal, Belgium, Türkiye, Czech Republic and Greece have only one representative to go straight to the Champions League group stage. These teams include: Sporting CP (Portugal), Union Saint-Gilloise (Belgium), Galatasaray (Turkey), Slavia Prague (Czech Republic) and Olympiacos (Greece).

The remaining seven places will go to the teams that pass the play-off round.

The format of next season's Champions League will be similar to this year's: the 36 teams will not be divided into groups as before.

Instead, each team will play 8 matches against 8 different opponents (4 home, 4 away). These eight opponents will be drawn randomly based on seeding (36 teams divided into 4 seeding groups).

After the matches in the above method, the clubs will be ranked based on the results of the matches (8 matches). Of which, the top 8 clubs will qualify for the round of 16. The next 16 clubs (from 9 to 24) will participate in the play-off round with 2 home and away matches to determine the remaining 8 places to participate in the round of 16.

The eight play-off losers will be relegated to the Europa League. The remaining clubs (25 to 36) will be eliminated. From the round of 16, the format will return to that of previous seasons.