Galatasaray to face holders PSG, Fenerbahçe to play Liverpool in CL

Galatasaray will host Barcelona and travel to Paris, while Fenerbahçe will play Liverpool at home and Atletico Madrid away in the UEFA Champions League main phase this season, after the 36-team draw was made Thursday.

This will mark the first time the Istanbul giants compete at the same time in Europe’s top competition since the 2001-2002 season. Galatasaray ended their run last year in the round of 16, while Fenerbahçe are appearing in the Champions League proper for the first time since 2008/09 after beating Lyon in the playoffs this week.

The eight-game league-phase format, introduced in the 2024-25 season, is entering its third campaign.

This season’s first matches will be played between Tuesday, Sept. 8 and Thursday, Sept. 10, with the final games in late January. UEFA is expected to announce the full fixture schedule Saturday.

Turkish champions Galatasaray will face Barcelona at home and play two-time defending champions Paris Saint-Germain away. Their other opponents include Sporting CP (away), Feyenoord (home), Lille (away), Stuttgart (home) and AEK Athens (away).

Fenerbahçe will host Liverpool and face Atletico Madrid away. Their other games include Europa League winners Aston Villa (away), Roma (home), Ukraine’s champions Shakhtar Donetsk (away), Villarreal (home), Slavia Prague (home) and newcomers LASK (away).

Former Spanish international David Villa holds the ticket of Fenerbahçe during the 2026/27 UEFA Champions League league phase draw at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, Aug. 27, 2026. (EPA Photo)

Former Spanish international David Villa holds the ticket of Galatasaray during the 2026/27 UEFA Champions League league phase draw at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, Aug. 27, 2026. (EPA Photo)

Besides Galatasaray, PSG, who beat Arsenal on penalties in Budapest in May to retain the trophy, will play Barcelona, Roma and Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia at home.

The French champions have won three straight visits to Barcelona – including a 2-1 win in the league phase last October – since imploding in the famous 6-1 loss in March 2017 that is known as the “Remontada” game.

Luis Enrique’s team will travel to England twice to face Manchester City and Aston Villa. They beat both teams on the way to winning their first Champions League title in 2025 and also defeated the latter in the UEFA Super Cup in Austria earlier this month.

They will also go to Spain to play Villarreal and Italy to take on newcomer Como, coached by Cesc Fabregas.

Real Madrid will host Inter Milan and make two trips to London, at Arsenal and against Shakhtar Donetsk.

Shakhtar are playing home games at Stamford Bridge, where Madrid’s returning coach Jose Mourinho was beloved by Chelsea fans in a pair of title-winning spells there.

Barcelona will host two English clubs – Man City and Villa – plus its former player Fabregas with Como. A long trip to Azerbaijan awaits to face debutants Sabah in Baku.

Arsenal will host Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Sabah, and travel to Bayern Munich.

Bayern got a second English opponent, with a trip to Manchester United, plus two Norwegian opponents, hosting Bodo/Glimt and visiting Viking. Bayern also will go to Atletico Madrid, whose Metropolitano Stadium will host the final next May.

Liverpool got trips to Inter Milan and Fenerbahçe in what looked one of the more favorable slates of eight games. Atletico will again come to Anfield, where Liverpool won 3-2 last September.

General view of the full fixture list at the end of the 2026/27 UEFA Champions League league phase draw at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, Aug. 27, 2026. (EPA Photo)

Atletico also will play both Norwegian teams and are one of four teams heading inside the Arctic Circle to play on Bodo/Glimt’s artificial turf. Dortmund, Lille and LASK also will travel to the remote fishing town, and one team must make the trip in January.

Sabah also will host Dortmund, Napoli and Slavia Prague. Fans also have two long trips from Azerbaijan to England to face Arsenal and Man United.

Como have a second trip to Spain, to play Real Betis as well as Barcelona, and will welcome PSG and Man United to their picture-postcard lakeside stadium home.

Four newcomers will debut in this Champions League edition: Como from Italy; LASK of Austria; Viking from Norway; and Azerbaijani champions Sabah, which were founded only in 2017.

Sabah coach Valdas Dambrauskas is already making headlines for his curious origin story in football. The money he won as a young contestant on TV quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” in his native Lithuania funded a trip to study coaching in England.

Another first this season is an African coach taking his team into the main phase. Former Manchester City and Barcelona star Yaya Toure guided Slovakian champions Slovan Bratislava through their qualifying playoff Wednesday. Slovan will visit PSG and host Inter Milan.

UEFA’s draw software allocated eight opponents to each team – four home games, four away – with two opponents taken from each seeding pot. Seeding was decided by ranking a team’s European results over the past five years. Teams could not be paired with an opponent from their own country.

The first round of games is played Sept. 8-10, with the first six rounds played through December. The league phase resumes in January with the eighth and final round on Jan. 27.

The top eight teams in the final standings go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th enter the knockout playoffs in February to decide the other eight teams in the round of 16. Teams placed 25th to 36th are eliminated.

The 36 teams will share prize money of about 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion).

DAILYSABAH