THE brand new Champions League format served up a horror draw for Liverpool… and a relative doozy for Arsenal.
The Gunners and the Reds – along with Aston Villa and Manchester City – learned their fates for the 2024/25 instalment of Europe‘s elite club competition on Thursday evening.
Fans across the continent watched on in baffled fascination as the fixtures for the competition’s new complicated 32-team league were revealed over the course of close to an hour.
It involved Italian goalkeeping legend Gianluigi Buffon drawing team’s out of a hat… before a bored-looking Cristiano Ronaldo repeatedly pushed a magic button to randomly determine which eight teams each plays.
And Liverpool fans will be cursing their old Manchester United foe and his supercomputer after it dished them out arguably the toughest draw of the competition.
Arne Slot‘s troops face tough trips to, Italy, Germany Spain and the Netherlands to take on AC Milan, LaLiga surprise packages Girona, PSV Eindhoven and RB Leipzig.
The Reds will host Real Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Bologna at Anfield.
Arsenal have been given a considerably easier draw in comparison to the Merseysiders.
The Gunners face a tough trip to Italy to take on Inter Milan and Atalanta and will also be on the road for their clashes with Girona and Sporting Lisbon.
While the supercomputer gave Mikel Arteta‘s troops home games against Shakhtar Donetsk, GNK Dinamo, Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain.
Premier League champions Manchester City, meanwhile, face away days to Juventus, Sporting Lisbon, Slovan Bratislava and Paris Saint-Germain.
BETTING SPECIAL – GET £40 IN FREE BETS WITH BETFRED
The 2022/23 winners will host Inter Milan, Club Brugge, Feyenoord and Sparta Prague at the Etihad.
Aston Villa will be on the road against RB Leipzig, Club Brugge, Young Boys and Monaco.
Bayern Munich, Juventus Bologna and Celtic will be the Villans’ opposition at Villa Park.
The 2024/25 instalment of the tournament kicks off the new format for Europe‘s elite club competition – which now features 36 teams instead of 32.
The well-known group stage format has been replaced by a SINGLE league set-up in which teams will play eight fixtures.
Each side faces two teams from the four-seeded pots.
In the new format, teams will play four games at home and four away.
The top eight teams will secure automatic qualification for the last 16, while the ninth to 24th-placed clubs will compete in a two-legged playoff.
Teams who finished in 25th place and below will be eliminated from the tournament and WON’T drop into the Europa League.
That means eight teams will play TEN games to reach the last-16, rather than the traditional six.
Arsenal reached the quarter-finals of the tournament last season but were dumped out by Bayern Munich 3-2 on aggregate.
Manchester City, meanwhile, were also eliminated at the quarter-final stage.
The Premier League champions were beaten by last season’s tournament winners Real Madrid on penalties after drawing 4-4 on aggregate.
Aston Villa and Liverpool, meanwhile, weren’t in Europe‘s elite club competition last season.
Villa, who won the old European Cup in 1982, reached the semis of the Europa Conference League last season.
Unai Emery‘s troops – who sealed UCL qualification with a fourth-placed Premier League finish – were eliminated from the Conference League by Greek giants Olympiacos.
Six-time winners Liverpool played in the Europa League last season and were jettisoned out of the competition at the quarter-final stage by tournament winners Atalanta.
