Champions League 2025/26: Without Ukrainian Clubs, but with five of our legionnaires

On Tuesday, September 16, the main stage of the UEFA Champions League will begin with the 20125/26 season. For the second year in a row, the tournament will be held according to which there is no division into groups, and each club will hold 8 matches on the way to the stage of Playoff.

The Champion tells everything you need to know about this year’s drawing of the most prestigious club tournament in Europe.

Lack of Ukrainian clubs For the first time in 20 years, no Ukrainian club will play mostly the Champions League Round. It happened after the defeat of Dynamo Kiev from Cyprus Paphos in the third round of qualification. By the way, later the champion of Ukraine, as well as Donetsk Shakhtar, also flew from the qualification of the Europa League, so the main stage of the second most prestigious European Cup of the Ukrainian representation will not.

Therefore, fans of Ukrainian football may be more closely monitored for the League of Conferences, which is the third time of the European Cup tournament. However, there will be anyone to look at the Champions League, because there are plenty of representatives of Ukraine in foreign clubs.

5 teams with Ukrainians as part of This season, there will be 5 teams in the Champions League, which contains Ukrainian players. In particular, French PSG with defender Ilya Zabarny, who moved to Paris from English Bournemouth this summer for 63 million euros without bonus, and Spanish Real Madrid with goalkeeper Andriy Lunin.

In addition, the colors of Portuguese Benphyry will be protected by the goalkeeper Anatoly Trubin and midfielder Georgy Sudakov, forward Roman Yaremchuk will play as part of the Greek Olympiakos, and another of our striker Alexei Kashchuk will play for Azerbaijani Karabakh, who qualified in history in history.

There should also be a sixth club, an unshaking for the Ukrainian fan – the English Arsenal, but Alexander Zinchenko moved from London to Nottingham in the last days of the transfer window. By the way, his Nottingham Forest will play this season in the Europa League, whose season will start on September 24, but the player of the national team of Ukraine did not get to the tournament.

By the way, another Ukrainian Mikhail Mudryk cannot help the London Chelsea because of disqualification. Last season, the English Club won the conference League, playing decisive duels without our countryman, so in the Champions League, a detachment of “pensioners” may not notice the loss of the soldier.

Exclusive week Like last season, the Champions League Starting Week will be exclusive. The duels will be held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (September 16-18), the Europa League and the League of Conferences will not be held this week.

The lack of transition between leagues At the main stage, each team will play with eight rivals in single duels: four domestic and four field matches.

The last two rounds will take place at the end of January 2025. As a result of eight rounds of the League stage, the final standings should be formed. The best eight teams will automatically go to the 1/8 finals, and the teams that will take places from 9 to 24 will play the counter matches for the right to get to the 1/8 finals.

The 12 worst teams that finish below 24 places in the tournament automatically leave the European Cups. It is possible to fly out of the Champions League in the League of Europe, as it happened in the pre -war times, after the reform can only be used during summer qualifications.

Who is the favorBookmakers are the main contenders for the trophy, the English Liverpool, French PSG, Catalan Barcelona and Madrid Real, quotations on these clubs range from 6.50-7.50.

At the same time, the Parisians will try to protect the championship, because they won the “eared cup” after the results of last season. One way or another, there is quite a good chance that the Ukrainian footballer will be the winner of this trophy.

Champions League Calendar 2025/26 League stage The main stage of the Champions League, like last year, will prolong the end of January. All matches of the final eighth round will take place at the same time.

• Tour 1: 16-18 September 2025
• Tour 2: 30 September and October 1 2025
• Tour 3: 21-22 October 2025
• Tour 4: 4-5 November 2025
• Tour 5: November 25-26 2025
• Tour 6: 9-10 December 2025
• Tour 7: 20-21 January 2026
• Tour 8: January 28 2026

Playoff The stage of disposal matches will begin on February 17, 2026 from the butt duels, the de facto stage of the 1/16 finals. 1/8 starts in early March, and the final game will take place on May 30 at Pushkash-Arena in Hungarian Budapest.

• Conflict matches: 17-18 and 24-25 February 2026
• 1/8 finals: 10-11 and March 17-18 2026
• Quarterfinals: 7-8 and 14-15 April 2026
• Semi-finals: April 28-29 and May 5-6 2026
• Final: May 30 2026

Where to watch matches For Ukrainian fans, the UEFA Champions League matches officially broadcast only Megogo. It is this online platform that has exclusive rights to show the main club tournament of Europe, as well as the Europa League and the League of Conferences at least by 2027.

Viewers can watch games both live and record, which is convenient for those who are not able to watch the matches live. An important advantage of the service is the high quality of broadcasting – all matches are available in Full HD format. In addition, there is a possibility of rewinding and access to a large football meeting archive.

To access the matches, you need to subscribe. It can be sports or complex – with films, series and TV channels. Megogo supports all popular devices: smartphones, tablets, smart TV, laptops and even game consoles. This allows fans to watch football anywhere and at any time.