Barça's eight rivals in the first round of the Champions League

BarcelonaBarça already knows the first part of the road to reaching the dream Champions League final, which will be played on May 30 at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest (Hungary). Hansi Flick's team, who lost last season in a traumatic semifinal against Inter Milan, will begin the top continental competition in mid-September with a match away from Barcelona due to the unavailability of the Camp Nou and Montjuïc stadiums.

The Blaugrana's opponents will be Chelsea, Newcastle, Club Brugge, and Slavia Prague away from home, and PSG, Eintracht Frankfurt, Copenhagen, and Olympiacos at home. In other words, they will play away against two of the best teams in the Premier League and will host the reigning European champions at their stadium—Montjuïc or a partially reopened Camp Nou. Also note: to the reunion with Eintracht, which in 2022 knocked Barça out of the Europa League in a match marked by the German invasion of the Camp Nou stands. In the duels against Club Brugge, Copenhagen, and Olympiacos, Flick's team will be clear favorites.

The draw has been less kind to Real Madrid, who already had many problems getting through to the round of 16 last season and will also have to sweat it out this year. Xabi Alonso's team will host Manchester City, Juventus, Monaco, and Olympique de Marseille at the Bernabéu. Away from home, they will face Liverpool, Benfica, Olympiacos, and Kairat Almaty. In other words, they will face Pep Guardiola again, the reigning Premier League champions, and will have to make a very long trip to visit Kairat.

The other Madrid team, Atlético Madrid, will have to visit Anfield (Liverpool) and the Emirates Stadium (Arsenal), in addition to a trip to Eindhoven (PSV) and Turkey (Galatasaray). Cholo Simeone's team will host Inter Milan, Barça's executioner in the last edition, Eintracht Frankfurt, Union Saint-Gilloise, and Bodo/Glimt at the Metropolitano. The other two Spanish teams have also been unlucky. Villarreal will play at the Cerámica stadium against Guardiola's City, Juve, Ajax, and Copenhagen, while they will visit Borussia Dortmund, Tottenham, Bayer Leverkusen, and Pafos. Finally, Ernesto Valverde's Athletic Bilbao will host PSG, Arsenal, Sporting Clube de Portugal, and Qarabağ at San Mamés, and will also visit Dortmund, Atalanta, Slavia Prague, and Newcastle. The final schedule with the order of matches won't be known until Saturday, after the Europa League and Conference League draws have been made.

Format changes to fix what hurt Barça

For the second season, clubs have been divided into four pots with nine teams in each pot, distributed according to individual coefficient. Each team will play two matches against opponents from all pots (one home and one away). The draw was carried out by software. The tradition of shuffling the balls is gone. The top eight teams from the league phase will advance directly to the round of 16. Ninth to twenty-fourth will play a preliminary round (with the return leg for teams finishing between ninth and sixteenth). Finally, all those finishing below twenty-fifth (inclusive) will be eliminated.

In addition, UEFA has introduced a change to the regulations to give more weight to the league phase. From this edition onwards, the final position in the standings will determine the play-off matches, which will be played on the ground of the highest-placed team. However, there is one exception: if a lower-ranked team eliminates a team ranked higher, they retain that advantage. Let's look at an example: if, as happened last year, PSG (15th in the league) eliminates Liverpool (1st), the Parisians would play all the other second legs at home. This rule, in fact, disadvantaged Barça, which had to play the second legs of the quarterfinals (Borussia Dortmund) and the semifinals (Inter Milan) away.

Three teams making their Champions League debut

Like every season, the Champions League qualifying rounds produce some interesting stories. If last year it was Girona, who were competing in European competition for the first time, this season there are three teams making their debut in the top club competition. One is Bodo/Glimt, a Norwegian team that captivated the world last year when they reached the UEFA Europa League semi-finals against Tottenham.

The other story is that of Kairat Almaty, a Kazakhstan club located about 300 kilometers from the Chinese border. It's more than nine hours of flight time, almost the same as going to Miami. Quite an odyssey. Finally, the third team to make their debut in the Champions League league stage is Pafos of Cyprus, coached by Spaniard Juan Carlos Carcedo.