Who could we face in the Women’s Champions League?

With the third qualifying round matches now wrapped up, we can get a clearer picture of some of the teams we might come up against in this season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League.

We reached the semi-finals of Europe’s prestigious competition last season before being knocked out by Lyon, but we’re now looking to get back to winning ways following our success in 2024/25.

All 18 teams have now secured their spots in the league phase, so here’s what we know about the 2026/27 iteration so far.

WHAT IS THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FORMAT?

The 2025/26 edition was the first use of the new league phase format, which replaced the previous group stage, and comprised of 18 teams.

This system will continue into the 2026/27 campaign, with 18 teams divided into three pots of six teams. Each team will face two opponents from each of the three pots, one at home and one away.

The top four sides in the league qualify automatically for the knockout stage, while teams finishing 5th to 12th will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure their path into the knockout phase.

In 2025/26, we finished fifth, meaning we had to go through some knockout phase play-off matches with OH Leuven before reaching the quarter-finals.

WHO HAS QUALIFIED FOR THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE?

Due to finishing second in the Women’s Super League last season, we automatically qualified for the league phase of the Champions League, alongside Manchester City, Barcelona, Lyon, Benfica, BK Hacken, Paris FC, Bayern Munich and Roma.

The other nine teams all had to get through qualifying, with third round fixtures wrapped up on Wednesday, September 2.

Servette Chenois from Switzerland managed to come from 3-2 down against Sparta Prague after the first leg to win 5-3 on aggregate, while Norway’s HB Koge beat PSV Eindhoven 2-1 to progress.

Austria Wien put four past Brann without reply in their second leg to reach the league phase, and OH Leuven were too strong for Czarni Sosnowiec.

Paris Saint-Germain cruised past Eintracht Frankfurt, winning their second leg 5-1, while Juventus did enough in their first leg against St. Polten to go through.

The closest tie was between VfL Wolfsburg and Inter Milan. The latter lost the first leg 2-0, but made the aggregate score 2-2 to take the second leg through to extra-time. Both teams scored again, before Inter won 5-4 on penalties.

Chelsea beat Real Sociedad 6-2 on aggregate, while Real Madrid won 4-1 against Ajax.

WHO COULD WE FACE IN THE LEAGUE PHASE?

Teams are placed into three pots, determined by their UEFA club coefficient. They will then be randomly allocated two opponents from each pot, playing one at home, and one away, to make up six league phase fixtures.

We will be in pot 1 for this draw alongside last season’s winners Barcelona, as well as Lyon, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and PSG.

Pot 2 consists of Real Madrid, Juventus, BK Hacken, Roma, Benfica and Paris FC, while pot 3 is made up of Man City, OH Leuven, HB Koge, Austria Wien, Inter Milan and Servette Chenois.

We cannot face a team from the Women’s Super League due to UEFA's rule of not playing teams from the same country in the league phase.

UWCL 26/27 League Phase Pots

WHEN IS THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DRAW?

The draw for the UEFA Women’s Champions League league phase will take place at 11am UK time on Friday, September 4, in which we will discover our six league phase opponents.

The league phase will kick-off on Tuesday, September 22, and the final league phase game will be on Wednesday, December 16.

The other league phase matches will take place on September 30-October 1, October 28-29, November 10-11, and November 18-19.

The draw for the knockout phase play-offs and quarter-finals will be held on Friday, December 18.

Should we be involved in them, knockout play-offs will be on Wednesday, February 3 or Thursday, February 4 (first leg) and Wednesday, February 10 or Thursday, February 11 (second leg).

Quarter-finals are set to be on Tuesday, March 23 or Wednesday, March 24 (first leg) and Wednesday, March 31 or Thursday, April 1 (second leg).

The semi-final first leg will be on Saturday, May 1 followed by the second leg on Saturday, May 8.

The Champions League final will be held on Saturday, May 29 at Stadion Narodowy in Warsaw.