{"id":887876,"date":"2026-09-08T11:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/887876\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T11:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:08:11","slug":"champions-league-returns-your-predictions-and-build-up-plus-ballon-dor-nominations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/887876\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League returns: Your predictions and build-up, plus Ballon d&#8217;Or nominations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How does the league phase work?published at 12:06 BST<\/p>\n<p>12:06 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/a152ffbd-69aa-4511-9a72-3e0d18403c77.jpg.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Champions League<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Each of the 36 teams plays eight different teams &#8211; four at home and four away &#8211; in the league phase.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Teams who finish in the top eight automatically qualify for the last 16, while those placing ninth to 24th will compete in a two-legged knockout play-off for the chance to join them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sides who finish 25th or lower will be eliminated, and will not drop into the Europa League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Last season, eventual runners-up Arsenal topped the league phase standings with 24 points after eight wins from as many matches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Liverpool were third &#8211; behind second-placed Bayern Munich &#8211; with 18 points while Tottenham finished one point behind in fourth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chelsea and Manchester City also qualified directly for the last 16 after finishing sixth and eighth respectively, while Newcastle finished 12th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chelsea, Manchester City, Newcastle and Spurs were knocked out in the last 16 last season while Liverpool were beaten in the quarter-finals by PSG, who also edged Arsenal in the final for their second consecutive title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How does the league phase work?published at 12:06 BST 12:06 BST Champions League Each of the 36 teams&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-887876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}