Champions League.. How do clubs qualify from the league stage?

With the UEFA Champions League football competition being updated starting from the current 2024-2025 season, tournament followers find it difficult to understand the clubs’ qualification stages, and we explain this as follows.

The clubs that will continue their journey in the Champions League this edition are divided into two sections, the first related to the clubs that will guarantee direct qualification to the round of sixteen and the second section related to the clubs that will qualify for a play-off to qualify for the round of sixteen.

The seats whose owners will guarantee passing the league stage are divided into two sections. The first section includes the top eight places, whose owners will advance directly to the round of sixteen.

The second section includes the teams ranked from 9 to 24, with a total of 16 teams. These are the clubs that will play a play-off among themselves, with eight clubs qualifying to join the teams that have already qualified for the round of sixteen.

Liverpool and Barcelona have officially secured direct qualification to the round of 16, with the former reaching 21 points and the latter 18 points, and it is impossible for either of them to drop to ninth place with one round remaining until the end of the league stage, due to the points difference.

The European Union has distinguished the clubs that are in the third to eighteenth places with different colours in the standings table, in order for them to have the opportunity to qualify directly to the round of sixteen if any of them finishes the league stage in one of the top eight places, or if any of them goes to a place between ninth and twenty-fourth, which means qualifying for the play-off to qualify for the round of sixteen.

As for the clubs that occupy the positions from nineteenth to twenty-seventh in the current ranking, they are clubs whose fate ranges between exiting the competition or qualifying for the play-offs to qualify for the round of sixteen only, and it is impossible for any of them to occupy one of the eight positions.

Finally, as for the clubs that occupied positions from 28 to 36, they are the clubs that lost their chance of reaching even the 24th position, the last position qualifying for the play-off to qualify for the round of sixteen.

Source: beIN Sports