Thursday’s Champions League draw on CBS Sports Golazo Network will deliver a smorgasbord of games for Europe’s biggest clubs, but there will be no Anfield clash between Liverpool and Real Madrid this season after UEFA introduced a new rule to ensure that fans are not subjected to the same games year in, year out in the league phase.
Liverpool and Real Madrid have met at Anfield in each of the last two seasons, with the home side winning 2-0 and 1-0, but this year a repeat fixture cannot take place on Merseyside. UEFA’s procedure confirms that for this season’s league phase state that the exact same matchup cannot be repeated three seasons in a row, and were Thursday’s draw to throw up these two names, UEFA would ensure that it is Real Madrid who host the game.
As such, Andoni Iraola’s side could be tasked with an away match at the Santiago Bernabeu but a third trip to Anfield is off the table, perhaps a relief to Jose Mourinho given how his predecessors have fared on the assignment. The Liverpool vs. Real Madrid is one of two games that cannot be repeated this season. Arsenal travelled to the San Siro in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 league phase, losing the first and winning the second to Inter. They will not meet in Milan for a third time this season.
Paragraph 16.03 of UEFA’s tournament regulations for the 2025-26 season verified that this amendment would be introduced for this year’s league phase, the draw for which takes place at midday ET on Thursday, September 27. The regulations say, “UEFA administration may determine alternative conditions for the draw in accordance with the principles set by the Club Competitions Committee and may adapt any of the conditions of the draw to avoid deadlock situations and/or take into account any relevant constraints in light of decisions taken by the UEFA Executive Committee.
“The UEFA Club Competitions Committee has determined an additional condition that may be applicable to the UEFA Champions League draw for the 2026/27 season, deciding that any individual fixture between the same two teams may not be repeated in the same competition with the same home team for three consecutive seasons.
“This means that if any teams that already played against each other in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League in the 2024/25 season are again drawn against each other, with the same home team, in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League in this 2025/26 season, those teams will not be able to be drawn against each other with the same home team in the 2026/27 season.”
The league phase of the Champions League, introduced in the 2024-25 season, sees each of the 36 qualified clubs play eight games, with each side playing one home and one away game against a separate opponent from each of the four seeding pots. The top eight ranked teams advance to the round of 16, while teams ranked ninth to 24th must compete in a playoff round to draw them.
