Newcastle United will be one of six English teams to play in next season’s Champions League, making our return to the competition having last played in the 2023/24 campaign.
It will be our first foray in the competition under the new ‘league phase’ format, adding at least another two games to our schedule for next season.
And if we’re looking to go far in Europe, we’re going to have to get results against some truly elite sides, as the Pot 1 seeds for the 2025/26 competition have officially been confirmed.
Of all the teams qualified for next season’s Champions League, they are ranked by their UEFA co-efficient (how well they’ve done in recent campaigns) and divided into four pots.
The top nine teams go into Pot 1, teams 10-18 go into Pot 2, teams 19-27 go into Pot 3, and teams 28-36 go into Pot 4, where we will be.
Pot 1 will include the newly-crowned champions PSG, Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid, and this season’s runners up Inter Milan, along with Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Borussia Dortmund.
There’s also the English trio of Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea in Pot 1, who we can’t be drawn against due to rules on playing teams from your own country.
This means we are guaranteed to play two of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG, Inter Milan and Borussia Dortmund; one at St James’ Park, one away from home.
The draw for the group phase will take place on Thursday 28th August, just a few days before the summer transfer window shuts on Monday 1st September.
After being drawn in the ‘Group of Death’ back in 2023 against PSG, Dortmund and AC Milan, Toon fans will be hoping for an easier set of fixtures this time around.
PSG beat all four English sides in this season’s competition, but we of course took four points off Luis Enrique’s side in our memorable group games, so that’s a salivating potential tie.
Barcelona gave us arguably the greatest night in our European history back in 1997, and there’s the possibility of us being one of the first teams to play at the renovated Nou Camp should it be completed by September.
We’ve never played Real Madrid in a competitive fixture, and with there being a 33% chance of playing Los Blancos in next season’s group stage, a mouthwatering trip to the Bernabeu could very well be on the cards.
A return to the San Siro to play Inter Milan is also a fixture with deep history: we travelled to Milan in 2003, where an Alan Shearer brace saw us draw 2-2 against an Inter side littered with stars like Zanetti, Cannavaro and Vieri.
Then the German giants in Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund are perhaps the most ‘winnable’ fixtures on offer out of the six: Dortmund scraped into the UCL this time round, and gifts us a perfect opportunity at revenge for both defeats in last season’s group stage ties.