The Champions League 2025-26 league phase is complete. The table below is the final 36-team standings from the eight-matchday league phase, which concluded in January 2026. It now serves as a historical record of how clubs qualified — or were eliminated — from the knockout rounds.
The 2025-26 competition has since completed all knockout rounds. PSG won the 2025-26 Champions League, beating Arsenal 4-3 on penalties in Budapest on May 30. The Champions League hub carries the full bracket retrospective.
How the Champions League league phase worked
The 2025-26 Champions League used the new 36-team league-phase format for the second consecutive season. All 36 clubs were placed in a single table and each played eight matches — four at home, four away — against eight different opponents drawn via a seeded system. Teams were not grouped; every club shared the same standings.
The top eight in the final table qualified directly for the round of 16. Teams finishing ninth through 24th entered a two-legged knockout playoff round, with the eight winners joining the top eight in the last 16. Clubs ranked 25th through 36th were eliminated from European competition entirely — there was no drop into the Europa League.
Who qualified from the league phase
The league phase produced its share of stories. The top-eight direct qualifiers secured a cleaner path to the latter rounds, avoiding the two extra knockout playoff matches that sides finishing ninth through 24th had to navigate. Several traditional heavyweights scraped through the playoff round rather than earning direct passage, while a handful of clubs expected to advance comfortably found themselves outside the top 24 and eliminated before the knockouts even began.
The knockout playoffs, played in February, whittled the field from 32 to 16. From there, the round of 16 and quarter-finals followed the familiar two-legged format. For Champions League winner odds and the latest outright markets, see our betting page.
What happened next
The knockouts are now at the semi-final stage. Arsenal face Atletico Madrid and PSG take on Bayern Munich for a place in the final, which is set for the Puskas Arena in Budapest on May 30. The full Champions League schedule and results page has every score from the league phase through to the semis, and the Champions League hub covers each tie in detail.
This league-phase table will not change again until the 2026-27 Champions League begins in September. It stands as the permanent record of how the 36 entrants performed across their eight matches and where the qualification lines fell.