The Road to the Group Stage Is Almost Complete
With the official Champions League group-stage draw scheduled for 28 August 2025, only seven seats at Europe’s top table are still vacant. Fourteen clubs enter the play-off round—the final hurdle before the lucrative league phase—locked in seven two-legged ties that will be settled on aggregate score. The winners walk straight into the Champions League proper; the losers parachute into the 2025-26 Europa League.
From Turkish giants desperate to return after years in the wilderness to Kazakh trail-blazers who began their journey in the first qualifying round on 8 July, the next eight days will either crown dreams or trigger recalibration.
Storylines That Will Dominate the Headlines
1. The Mourinho Reunion: Fenerbahçe vs. Benfica
A 25-Year Anniversary No One Saw Coming
Almost to the day 25 years ago, José Mourinho was handed his first senior managerial post by Benfica. A quarter-century later, the self-proclaimed “Special One” stands in the opposite dugout, tasked with eliminating the club that launched him.
Contrasts in Pedigree
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Benfica: Reached the round of 16 in the 2024-25 Champions League, then beat Bayern Munich and took Chelsea to extra-time in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
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Fenerbahçe: Have not appeared in the Champions League group stage since 2008-09. They scraped through the third qualifying round, edging Robin van Persie’s Feyenoord 6-4 on aggregate.
Mourinho’s Reality Check
“We are not a Champions League side in the sense of winning the competition—that’s an impossible dream right now—but we can be competitive.”
— José Mourinho, post-Feyenoord press conference
Key Players to Watch
| Fenerbahçe | Benfica |
|---|---|
| Fred (ex-Man United engine) | Vangelis Pavlidis (7 UCL goals last season) |
| Jhon Durán (8-month globetrotter: Villa → Al-Nassr → Fener) | Ángel Di María (Champions League veteran) |
Financial & Prestige Stakes
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Minimum eight guaranteed matches in the new league phase equal roughly €50 million in prize money and market pool.
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Fenerbahçe’s Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium sold out in 45 minutes—the first sell-out since 2014.
2. The Three Former Champions in the Field
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Benfica – 1961 & 1962 European Cup winners
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Celtic – 1967 champions, eyeing a return after last season’s Europa League exit
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Crvena zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) – 1991 champions, looking to secure back-to-back group-stage appearances
Each knows how to navigate two-legged pressure, but none regard the play-offs as routine.
3. The First-Timers Dreaming of History
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Bodø/Glimt – Norwegian champions, Europa League semi-finalists last season, seeking a first-ever Champions League group stage.
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Pafos – Cypriot Cup winners, bankrolled by a US-based consortium, hoping to become the island’s third representative ever.
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Kairat Almaty – Kazakhstan’s flag-bearers who started in Round 1 on 8 July and have already played six qualifiers. A win over Celtic would be the nation’s first group-stage berth.
2025 Play-off Round Schedule (First Legs)
All kick-offs at 3 p.m. ET | Live on Paramount+
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
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FK Crvena zvezda vs. Pafos
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Rangers vs. Club Brugge
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Ferencváros vs. Qarabağ
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
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Celtic vs. Kairat Almaty
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Basel vs. Copenhagen
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Bodø/Glimt vs. Sturm Graz
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Fenerbahçe vs. Benfica – The Mourinho Bowl
How the New League Phase Works
Beginning this season, the Champions League ditches the traditional eight groups of four. Instead, 36 teams play in a single league table where:
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Each club plays eight different opponents (four home, four away).
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The top eight advance directly to the round of 16.
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Teams finishing 9th–24th enter a two-legged knockout play-off.
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Teams 25th–36th are eliminated from Europe entirely.
The format rewards depth and consistency—exactly why failing at this play-off hurdle stings even more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: Why is the play-off round over two legs instead of one neutral-site match?
A: UEFA maintains the two-leg, home-and-away format to reward domestic league performance (higher-seeded teams host the second leg) and to preserve the drama and commercial value of ties spread across eight days.
Q2: What happens to the seven losing teams?
A: They drop into the Europa League league phase, starting in September. For many, such as Bodø/Glimt or Pafos, that is still a lucrative parachute worth roughly €15 million in base prize money.
Q3: Can the play-off round end via extra-time or penalties in the second leg?
A: Yes. If the aggregate score is level after 180 minutes, 30 minutes of extra-time is played. If still tied, the tie is decided by penalty kicks.
Q4: How can U.S. viewers watch every game?
A: All 14 first-leg matches stream live on Paramount+. Select second-leg fixtures may also air on CBS Sports Network. Spanish-language coverage is available on ViX+.
Q5: Are away goals still a tie-breaker?
A: No. UEFA abolished the away-goals rule in 2021. If teams are level on aggregate, extra-time and penalties decide the tie regardless of goals scored on the road.
One Week That Shapes a Season
Between 19 and 27 August, reputations will be burnished or bruised, balance sheets rewritten, and fanbases either catapulted into dreams of Wembley in June or left to recalibrate for Thursday-night football.
For José Mourinho, the stakes are personal: silence the skeptics who claim his methods have gone stale and celebrate 25 years in management by outfoxing the very club that gave him his start.
For Kairat, Pafos, and Bodø/Glimt, the stakes are historic: 90 minutes from immortality in a country that has never danced on Europe’s biggest stage.
Regardless of outcome, the 2025 Champions League play-offs promise plot twists worthy of Europe’s most theatrical competition.