Liverpool will soon learn their eight Champions League league-phase opponents, and the list could include Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Barcelona. The draw will produce eight opponents for every team, two from each pot, so the margins are thin before a ball has even been drawn.
The restrictions on Premier League opponents
No team can face an opponent from their own country in the league phase, which rules out Arsenal, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Manchester City for Liverpool. That leaves the draw wide open in one sense and tightly controlled in another, because the domestic block removes four familiar names from the mix.
Liverpool's potential pot 1 opponents also include Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid. The headline names will grab attention, but the format itself is the bigger storyline here, because Liverpool are not waiting to discover one opponent, they are waiting for the full eight.
Liverpool's European benchmark from last season
The draw has extra weight because Liverpool handled this format well last season. They won six of their eight league-phase games and finished third, then went out to eventual champions Paris Saint-Germain in the quarter-finals.
That is a decent platform for the return to Europe, and it gives this draw some real bite. Liverpool scored 20 goals and conceded only eight in the league phase, which is a strong enough balance to make another difficult set of fixtures look like a test rather than a reset.
The draw is due later this week, with Matchday 1 listed for September 8-10, 2026. Liverpool will get their opponents then, and the only certainty before that is that the league phase is again built on eight games against a spread of elite opposition.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
