2026/2027 Champions League Final Set for the Metropolitano on June 5, With 36 Teams in the League Phase

Seven spots are still up for grabs, but the 2026/2027 Champions League already has a start date, a final venue and 29 confirmed names on the guest list. The big night will be on June 5, 2027, at the Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid, and getting there means navigating a path that effectively begins in mid-August with the playoffs.

This will be the third edition under the League Phase format, the setup that scrapped the old-style groups in favor of putting 36 teams into a single standings table. That's four more clubs than the old model, eight matches per team, and one giant table that decides who advances and who heads home early.

The playoffs settle the final spots

Before reaching that big phase, teams have to survive the playoffs, played home and away and wrapping up on August 26. They're split into two paths: the Champions Path, reserved for those who won their domestic league, and the League Path, for runners-up or clubs that qualified through less prestigious routes.

In the Champions Path, Celtic all but wrapped things up after thrashing LASK Linz 3-0 in the first leg, while AEK Athens and Levski Sofia played out a scoreless draw, Viking and Dinamo Zagreb split the points in a 2-2, Celje and Slovan Bratislava finished 1-1, and Sabah edged Hapoel Be'er Sheva 2-1. In the League Path, Olympique Lyon and Fenerbahce drew 1-1, and Bodo/Glimt beat NEC Nijmegen 3-1 in the first leg.

All those ties will be decided between August 25 and 26, so it's only then that the full field of 36 clubs will be known. The draw that will shape the calendar, setting each club's eight opponents and the home and away split, comes just a day later, on Thursday, August 27.

Full schedule through the final

The League Phase gets underway on Tuesday, September 8, and runs for eight matchdays until January 27, 2027, the date by which it will be clear who advances straight to the round of 16 and who has to play an extra knockout round. The top eight in the standings move directly into the round of 16; teams finishing between ninth and 24th go into a Knockout Phase Playoff, played home and away between February 16 and 24, 2027.

From there, the rest of the road follows the usual shape but with dates already locked in: round of 16 on March 9 and 10 (second leg March 16 and 17), quarterfinals on April 6 and 7 (second leg April 13 and 14) and semifinals on April 27 and 28, with the second leg on May 4 and 5, before it all comes down to the single final at the Metropolitano.

Among the clubs already qualified are some of the continent's biggest names: Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, Inter and Arsenal, among others, alongside clubs like Como 1907 and Sporting CP, a reminder of just how global the distribution of spots has become in this new era of the competition.