Real Madrid 2026/27 Champions League Draw - Who, When, Where?

French former football player Thierry Henry shows the paper slip of Real Madrid CF (ESP) during the draw ceremony for the league phase of the 2026-2027 UEFA Champions League football tournament at the Grimaldi Forum in the Principality of Monaco on August 27, 2026. (Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP via Getty Images)

Real Madrid learned their opponents for the 2026/27 Champions League league phase on Thursday, as UEFA held this season's draw in Geneva. Under the competition's Swiss-style format, now in its third year, Real Madrid will play eight league-phase matches, four at home and four away, against sides drawn from four seeding pots rather than the old group of four.

This year’s draw pairs Real Madrid with Inter Milan and Arsenal from Pot One, PSV Eindhoven and Roma from Pot Two, Leipzig and Shakhtar Donetsk from Pot Three, and LASK and AEK Athens from Pot Four. It is a mix of old rivals and near strangers, given that Arsenal beat Real Madrid out of the quarter-finals only two years ago, Roma once knocked them out under coach José Mourinho's old adversaries, and LASK have never faced them at all.

Real Madrid go into the campaign looking to bounce back from a run of three quarter-final exits in four seasons, sandwiched around their 15th European Cup in 2023/24. The league phase runs from September through January, with matchday dates and kick-off times still to be confirmed by UEFA, before the knockout rounds begin in February and build toward the final at Madrid's own Estadio Metropolitano next June.

Pot one of the draw brings the heaviest company, Inter Milan at home and Arsenal away. Real Madrid’s record against Inter is one of the most one-sided in the competition, eight wins from nine home meetings and four straight victories in their recent run. Arsenal is a different proposition. The two clubs have met just twice, back in 2005/06, before colliding again in the 2024-25 quarter-finals, when Arsenal won 5-1 on aggregate and hold the head-to-head edge from all three meetings.

Pot two pairs PSV Eindhoven at home with Roma away, and gives the draw its clearest Mourinho connection. Real Madrid and PSV have met only three times, all in the late 1980s, splitting a semi-final and quarter-final over consecutive seasons, so this will be their first competitive fixture in well over three decades. Roma is much better trodden ground: Real Madrid have won eight of eleven European meetings, including a 4-0 aggregate win in the 2015/16 last 16, and it was Mourinho who managed Roma from 2021 to 2024, lifting the Europa Conference League and reaching a Europa League final before his exit led him back to Portugal.

Pot three sends Leipzig to the Bernabéu and takes Real Madrid to Shakhtar Donetsk. Leipzig and Real Madrid have met three times, all since 2022, with Real Madrid winning twice, though Leipzig did hand them their first defeat of the 2022/23 league phase along the way. Shakhtar is a reunion with a side Real Madrid faced regularly in the mid-2010s, beating them home and away during the 2015/16 title run, and given Shakhtar’s continued displacement from home matches in Ukraine, this tie will again be played at a neutral venue at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge in London.

Pot 4 is the least charted territory: LASK at home and AEK Athens away. Real Madrid have no recorded history against the Austrian side in Europe, making it the most straightforward unknown of the draw. AEK Athens is more familiar, having met Real Madrid in the 2018/19 league phase, which Real Madrid won comfortably both times.

The league phase dates for 2026/27 are set out, though exact kick-off times per fixture will only land once UEFA publishes the full schedule following today’s draw.

Matchday one falls on September 8-10, 2026, kicking off the league phase proper. Matchday two follows on October 13-14, then Matchday three on October 20-21, a quick turnaround typical of the compressed early-season block.

November brings two rounds: Matchday four on November 3-4 and Matchday five on November 24-25. Matchday six lands on December 8-9, closing out the calendar-year fixtures.

The league phase then breaks for winter before wrapping up in January, with Matchday six on January 19-20, 2027 and the final round, Matchday eight, played as a single midweek date on January 27 (all 36 teams playing simultaneously, standard practice for the closing round since UEFA introduced the Swiss-style format).

From there, the knockout phase play-offs run February 16-17 and 23-24, 2027, the round of 16 on March 9-10 and 16-17, quarter-finals on April 6-7 and 13-14, semi-finals on April 27-28 and May 4-5, and the final at the Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid on June 5, 2027.

Real Madrid’s Champions League campaign last season stalled again in the quarter-finals, but not before an intriguing subplot involving Jose Mourinho. Under new coach Xabi Alonso, Real Madrid finished a point outside the automatic last-16 spots and had to survive a playoff round to reach the knockouts. Their opponent was Benfica, led by Mourinho after he returned to his native Portugal following his Fenerbahce exit. Real Madrid got past his side while being coached by his former player Álvaro Arbeloa, and then thumped Manchester City 5-1 on aggregate in the round of 16, only to be eliminated by Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals after a heavy first-leg defeat in Germany.

The season before that ended even worse. Carlo Ancelotti’s Madrid scraped past Atlético Madrid in the last 16 in 2024/25, then were dismantled by Arsenal in the quarter-finals, losing 5-1 on aggregate after a 3-0 first-leg beating at the Emirates. It was Madrid’s first quarter-final exit since Monaco knocked them out in 2003/04.

Go back one more year and the picture flips completely. In 2023/24, Madrid won a 15th European Cup, beating Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, with Vinícius Júnior named the tournament’s best player and Jude Bellingham its best young player.

Mourinho is back now having previously managed Real Madrid from 2010 to 2013 and never winning the Champions League with Los Blancos. He reached the semi-finals in all three of his seasons in charge, losing to Barcelona in 2011, going out to Bayern Munich on penalties in 2012, and falling to his old club Dortmund in 2013.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com