2021–22 UEFA Champions League

The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League is the 67th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA. Chelsea are the previous champions.

Association team allocation
A total of 80 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations participate in the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
Associations 1–4 each have four teams qualify.
Associations 5–6 each have three teams qualify.
Associations 7–15 each have two teams qualify.
Associations 16–55 (except Liechtenstein) each have one team qualify.
The winners of the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League and 2020–21 UEFA Europa League are each given an additional entry if they do not qualify for the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League through their domestic league. However, the Champions League title holders have qualified through their domestic league, meaning the additional entry for the Champions League title holders is not necessary for this season.

Association ranking
For the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2020 UEFA association coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2015–16 to 2019–20.

Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
 – Additional berth for UEFA Europa League title holders

Distribution
The following is the access list for this season. As the Champions League title holders, Chelsea, which were guaranteed a berth in the Champions League group stage, already qualified via their domestic league (as fourth place in the 2020-21 Premier League), the following changes to the access list were made:
The champions of association 11 (Turkey) entered the group stage instead of the play-off round.
The champions of association 13 (Denmark) entered the play-off round instead of the third qualifying round.
The champions of association 15 (Czech Republic) entered the third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.
The champions of associations 18 (Greece) and 19 (Serbia) entered the second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round.

Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
TH: Champions League title holders
EL: Europa League title holders
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.: League positions of the previous season
Abd-: League positions of abandoned season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe as determined by the national association; all teams are subject to approval by UEFA as per the guidelines for entry to European competitions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round are divided into Champions Path (CH) and League Path (LP).

CC: 2021 UEFA club coefficients.

Notes

Schedule
All matches are played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays apart from the preliminary round final, which was played on a Friday, and the final, which will be played on a Saturday. The third qualifying round second legs were only played on a Tuesday due to the 2021 UEFA Super Cup on the following Wednesday. Scheduled kick-off times starting from the play-off round are 18:45 (instead of 18:55 previously) and 21:00 CEST/CET.

All draws are held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, except the group stage draw, which took place in Istanbul, Turkey, on 26 August 2021.

Qualifying rounds

Preliminary round

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

Third qualifying round

Play-off round

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held in Istanbul, Turkey, on 26 August 2021. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on the following principles:
Pot 1 contained the Champions League and Europa League title holders, and the champions of the top six associations based on their 2020 UEFA country coefficients.
Pot 2, 3 and 4 contained the remaining teams, seeded based on their 2021 UEFA club coefficients.
Teams from the same association, and due to political reasons, teams from Ukraine and Russia, could not be drawn into the same group.

The matches will be played on 14–15 September, 28–29 September, 19–20 October, 2–3 November, 23–24 November, and 7–8 December 2021. The top two teams of each group will advance to the round of 16. The third-placed teams will play to the Europa League knockout round play-offs, while the fourth-placed teams will be eliminated from European competitions for the season.

Sheriff Tiraspol made their first appearance in the group stage. They are the first team from Moldova to play in the Champions League group stage.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Knockout phase

In the knockout phase, teams play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Related pages 

 2021–22 UEFA Europa League
 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League
 2022 UEFA Super Cup
 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League
 2021–22 UEFA Youth League

References

Other websites 

 

2021-22
2021 in association football
2022 in association football
2022 in Europe