At six o’clock this evening, in a conference hall on the Monaco seafront, a season gets its shape. The Champions League draw for the 2026-27 league phase takes place on Thursday 27 August at the Grimaldi Forum, and by the time it finishes Real Madrid will know the eight opponents standing between them and a 16th European Cup. José Mourinho will know something else: the exact size of the job he has taken on.
This is his first European campaign back at the Bernabéu, and the third of these league-phase draws since UEFA scrapped the old group stage. The first two both sent Madrid to Anfield. This one cannot — and that quirk is the one piece of the draw that is already settled.
When Is The Champions League Draw, And How Do I Watch It?
The ceremony begins at 18:00 CEST — 17:00 in the UK, midday on the east coast of the United States. As The Real Champs note, do not expect to hear any club names immediately; on recent form it takes at least half an hour of preamble before the first ball is drawn.
Coverage is on Movistar Liga de Campeones in Spain, TNT Sports 1 and HBO Max in the UK, and Paramount+ and CBS Sports Golazo in the United States.
The format is now familiar. Thirty-six clubs, one combined table, eight matches each — two opponents drawn from each of four coefficient-ranked pots, one at home and one away. Finish in the top eight and you go straight into the last 16. Finish between ninth and 24th and you take the scenic route through a February play-off. Finish 25th or lower and your European season is over before spring.
The One Result Real Madrid Already Have
Los Blancos will not be going back to Anfield. As Madrid Universal report, citing Liverpool’s own official website, UEFA regulations prevent a club being drawn at home to the same opponent in the league phase for a third consecutive season — and Madrid have made that trip in each of the last two.
Neither went well. Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo settled the 2024-25 visit; Mac Allister headed the winner on the return in 2025-26. The rule does not keep the two apart altogether, but if they are paired this time the fixture has to be played at the Santiago Bernabéu — where, incidentally, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konaté would be spared a reception neither would enjoy. We looked at how that regulation works in detail on Wednesday.
What Madrid Actually Need From The Balls
Everything else is open, and the honest answer is that pot placement matters less than it used to. Under the league-phase system a bad draw is not one fearsome opponent but a cluster of away days at hostile grounds in the wrong weeks — and this season those weeks are unforgiving. Madrid are already juggling a LaLiga start that has produced two wins from two, a squad Mourinho does not yet consider finished, and a transfer window that closes on Monday.
There is history in the room as well. Mourinho has won this competition twice, with Porto in 2004 and Inter in 2010, and in his first Madrid spell he reached three consecutive semi-finals without ever getting past one. The club, meanwhile, are coming off a 2025-26 that produced no trophies at all and a quarter-final exit to Bayern Munich. Nobody at the Bernabéu regards eighth place and a direct route to the last 16 as an achievement. It is the minimum.
Then Straight Back To Work
The draw is theatre, and Madrid have a league match to play three days later. But it is the first hard information anyone gets about a season that has so far been all promise: Mourinho unbeaten in his 11 Bernabéu games across two spells, Mbappé opening his account with a hat-trick against Real Sociedad, Konaté and Marc Cucurella bedding in. This evening the schedule arrives, and everyone finds out how hard it is going to be.
We will have Real Madrid’s eight opponents and the home-and-away splits as soon as the balls are out in Monaco.
