{"id":398747,"date":"2026-01-30T12:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398747\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T12:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:48:07","slug":"champions-league-draw-real-madrid-to-face-benfica-newcastle-to-face-qarabag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398747\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League draw: Real Madrid to face Benfica, Newcastle to face Qarabag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Once the eight winners of the play-offs have been determined they progress to the last 16, where they will meet the top eight finishers from the league phase.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">From this point onward the competition adopts a knockout format, with each fixture other than the final contested over two legs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As with the play-offs, teams&#8217; final ranking in the league phase will influence seeding in the last 16, with seeded sides &#8211; those that finished in the top eight of the league &#8211; given the advantage of playing their second fixture at home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This is the first season that the position in which teams have placed in the league phase will also influence seeding for the quarter-final and semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Teams finishing first to fourth at the end of the league phase will be seeded for the quarter-finals, and therefore given the second leg home advantage for their potential quarter-final tie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The two sides who finish top and runner-up in the league will also be seeded for the semi-finals, earning them the benefit of playing the second leg of their semi-final tie at home should they reach that stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If a seeded team does not progress to the quarter or semi-finals, the team that knocked them out inherits their seeding position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once the eight winners of the play-offs have been determined they progress to the last 16, where they&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-398747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}