This draw gives Xabi Alonso, Real Madrid's new manager, with a significant challenge as well as a chance to put himself to the test. (Image Credit: ANI)
The 2025–26 UEFA Champions League had a new ‘league phase’ format that used two pots of 18 teams. The 36 teams were put into one table instead of groups, with each club playing 8 opponents, two from each of the four seeded pots, at home and away. The top 8 teams will receive automatic entry into the round of the last 16. Teams that finished between ninth and twenty fourth place will compete against each other in a two legged playoff for the final positions into the round of sixteen. The draw was held at Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum on 28 August 2025 with the assistance of football legends, including Kaka, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Real Madrid’s opponents will be daunting, at home to Manchester City, Juventus, and Marseille and Monaco and away to Liverpool, Benfica, Olympiacos, and newcomer Kairat Almaty. There are plenty of rivalries brewing and once again, the travel a trip to Kairat’s part of the world should be enlightening and an experience for the team to endure.
Club director Emilio Butragueno remarked on the difficult and excitement of the draw and preparation for the important matches, and reiterated the role of the Santiago Bernabeu and the responsibility to win, in particular the home games, and noted how away games have historically been challenging.
In the meantime, some articles have analyzed the relative difficulty of draws for different teams. Marseille, Real Madrid, Newcastle United and Barcelona have the highest opponent ratings on average. Real Madrid have ranked highly in demanding opposition. Generally speaking, Real Madrid has one of the hardest routes in this season’s UCL, lots of high profile matches, logistical, and a chance for some thrilling clashes too, a great way to start Xabi Alonso’s reign.
To make this even more interesting, the new ‘league phase’ makes all the individual games much more crucial than in the old group system in which weaker games gave big clubs the ability to rotate and or atone for early mistakes. Real Madrid must deal with the fact that every opponent in the group such as Manchester City, Liverpool, and Juventus are elite teams. There is little room for error. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum is a debutante in Kairat Almaty. This is the first time they are being featured in the competition, and this has its own logistical challenges for Madrid. But it is also a stark reminder of how expansive this competition is. For Xabi Alonso, this baptism of fire could certainly question his credibility as the one man Madrid should rely on going forward.
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