ARSENAL enjoyed a magnificent season under Mikel Arteta last term, finishing runner-up to Manchester City in the Premier League.
The Gunners’ second-place finish earned them a spot in the Champions League this campaign.
Arsenal will be aiming to improve on last season’s quarter-final run as Mikel Arteta looks to lead the North London outfit to the club’s first Champions League title.
This campaign, the Gunners will be a part of the brand new Champions League league phase, which has replaced the traditional group stage.
SunSport takes a look at the new style and who Arsenal could face…
What is the new Champions League format?
Each club will play eight matches in the opening phase – against seeded opposition, in a system designed to ensure that teams play opponents of similar difficulty.
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The top eight teams in the “final” table will automatically go through to the last 16, where they will be joined by the eight play-off winners of ties between the sides placed ninth to 24th in the table.
Despite there being just eight matches in the opening phase, European matches will be spread over 10 midweek slots.
The new Champions League format also sees the implication of two additional qualifying spots.
They will be awarded to the nations that are top of the “country coefficient” chart each season.
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Who could Arsenal get in the Champions League?
Arsenal are in Pot 2 due to the Gunners’ Uefa coefficient ranking.
Mikel Arteta’s men will play eight matches against two teams from each of the four pots during the league phase, playing one match from each pot at home and one away.
Teams in the league phase cannot be drawn against clubs from the same nation, meaning the Gunners will avoid Man City, Liverpool and Aston Villa.
Arsenal also can be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same country.
Here are the clubs the Gunners could draw from each of the four pots:
Pot 1:
- Real Madrid
- Bayern Munich
- Paris Saint-Germain
- Inter Milan
- Borussia Dortmund
- RB Leipzig
- Barcelona
Pot 2:
- Bayer Leverkusen
- Atletico Madrid
- Atalanta
- Juventus
- Benfica
- Club Brugge
- Shakhtar Donetsk
- AC Milan
Pot 3:
- Feyenoord
- Sporting CP
- PSV Eindhoven
- Celtic
- Winner of Young Boys v Galatasaray play-off
- Winner of Dinamo Zagreb v Qarabag play-off
- Winner of Lille v Slavia Prague play-off
- TBD (see below)
- TBD (see below)
Pot 4
- Monaco
- Bologna
- Girona
- VfB Stuttgart
- Sturm Graz
- Brest
- Winner of Malma v Sparta Prague play-off
- TBD (see below)
Who will fill the TBD spots?
The spots that you can not accurately predict come down to three play-off games – here are the matches in question:
- Midtjylland v Slovan Bratislava
- Bodo/Glimt v Red Star Belgrade
- Dynamo Kyiv v Red Bull Salzburg
The qualifying side with the lowest coefficient will go into Pot 4, with the others going into Pot 3.
When is the 2024/25 Champions League draw?
The 2024/25 Champions League draw will take place on Thursday, August 29.
The draw will begin at 5pm BST at the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
An automated system will now randomly select eight opponents for each team from four pots and allocate which teams play at home and away.
What TV channel is the 2024/25 Champions League draw on and can it be live streamed?
The 2024/25 Champions League draw will be broadcast LIVE on TNT Sports in the UK.
Subscription members of TNT can stream the entire action through Discovery+
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Amazon have purchased UEFA rights in the UK for the first time so the draw will also be available on Amazon Prime Video.
Alternatively, fans can find out who their teams will be drawn with through our live blog.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
