Champions League: PSG gets tough slate; Real Madrid head to Liverpool

Paris Saint-Germain was handed a tough start to the defense of its Champions League title with games against Bayern Munich and Barcelona, and Thursday’s draw also served up opponents from England and Spain from the pot of lowest-ranked teams.

PSG’s easiest opponents, in theory, in the league phase will be Newcastle and Athletic Club.

Tottenham, the Europa League champion, also will play PSG in a repeat of their Super Cup game two weeks ago. PSG’s eight-game schedule is completed by Bayer Leverkusen, Atalanta and Sporting Lisbon.

Real Madrid also got a challenging draw, including a trip far east to play Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan — 6,420 kilometers (4,000 miles) from the Spanish capital.

Record 15-time champion Madrid got two English opponents from the pot of highest-ranked teams. Madrid will host Manchester City, which it beat in the knockout playoffs last season, and return to Liverpool after losing 2-0 at Anfield in the league phase last year.

Madrid also will face Juventus in a repeat of its 2017 final win, and two French opponents, Marseille and Monaco — where superstar forward Kylian Mbappe started his career.

Liverpool fans will welcome Trent Alexander-Arnold back to Anfield with Madrid, and have away trips to the vibrant stadiums of Inter Milan, Eintracht Frankfurt, Marseille and Galatasaray.

Bayern Munich will have rematches of two recent finals – at home to Chelsea where the German champion lost the 2012 title game on home turf, and away to PSG, which it beat in the 2020 final. Bayern also will go to Cyprus to face Pafos.

Manchester City will travel north of the Arctic Circle to face Bodo/Glimt of Norway, and host former fan favorite Kevin De Bruyne with his new club Napoli.

Inter Milan, which lost two of the last three finals, will host the top two teams in the Premier League last season, Liverpool and Arsenal. Inter beat Arsenal at the San Siro last season.

Kairat also will host Club Brugge, Olympiakos and Pafos. The team also must travel four time zones west to play at Arsenal and Sporting Lisbon.

Bodo/Glimt also will host Juventus, Tottenham and Monaco.

Qarabag in Azerbaijan is another long-haul trip east to Baku for Chelsea, Eintracht, Ajax and Copenhagen.

This is the second season of the league phase format with 36 teams playing eight different opponents on a weighted schedule through January, and ranked in a single-standings table.

Four newcomers to the main stage of the Champions League are: Bodo/Glimt, Kairat Almaty, Russian-owned Pafos and Belgian champion Union Saint-Gilloise.

Games in Bodo and Almaty shape to be the longest-ever trips for visiting teams, and their home games in January among the coldest in competition history. Bodo plays on a heated artificial turf field.

The computerized draw gave each team two opponents drawn from each of the four seeding pots. Teams are seeded based on their ranking over five seasons of results in UEFA competitions.

Retired great Zlatan Ibrahimovic picked each team out of its draw pot and former Ballon d’Or winner Kaka pushed a button to reveal the slate of opponents.

Games start on Sept. 16 and the final league phase matchday is Jan. 28. On that Wednesday evening, all 36 teams play in 18 games kicking off at the same time.

The top eight teams in the final standings advance to the round of 16 in March. Joining them will be winners of eight knockout playoffs, featuring teams ranked ninth to 24th, scheduled in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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