The Champions League, also known as UEFA’s top club competition and simply the Champions League for short, is one of the most prestigious and popular events in world football. It’s a tournament run by Europe’s biggest soccer governing body, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), and it’s only open to the champion clubs from each nation’s national league system. The competition was first held in 1960 and is one of the most recognizable sporting events in the world, with a trophy as beloved as the FIFA World Cup Trophy.
The tournament has been revamped a few times since, most recently for the 2024-25 season. During that change, the group stage was removed and replaced with a league phase in which teams are ranked and then placed into a draw to determine matchups for the knockout stages.
In the league phase, a team’s rank now determines which leg of their tie with a team from a higher ranking is played at home. This is a major change to previous tournaments, where a number of ties were opened up to all four top-ranked teams to prevent an imbalance of fixtures.
The league phase now also provides more sporting incentive during the qualification process by providing a direct path to the tournament for some associations’ second- through fourth-ranked clubs. The competition still has country protection until the quarterfinals, but a new method for creating the bracket in those rounds means that there will be more draws during the knockout phases than previously.