{"id":77780,"date":"2026-08-30T05:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T05:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/77780\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T05:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T05:31:10","slug":"champions-league-schedule-real-madrid-open-league-phase-vs-inter-milan-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/77780\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League schedule: Real Madrid open league phase vs. Inter Milan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record 15-time European champions Real Madrid<\/a> will start the league phase of the Champions League on Sept. 8 when they host coach Jos\u00e9 Mourinho’s former club Inter Milan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Match dates for each of the 36 teams’ eight-game schedules were published Saturday by UEFA, two days after the draw in Monaco.<\/p>\n

– Champions League draw: Good for Liverpool, bad for Barcelona<\/a>
– Arsenal-Madrid, PSG-Bar\u00e7a highlight UCL draw<\/a>
– Champions League draw becomes UEFA’s latest stand against FIFA president Infantino<\/a><\/p>\n

In two early starts on the opening day, Club Brugge will host Aston Villa<\/a> and AEK Athens will welcome LASK, the newcomers from Austria. Both games will kick off at 6:45 p.m.<\/p>\n

One day later, defending champions Paris Saint-Germain<\/a> will host Slovan Bratislava — coached by Yaya Tour\u00e9, the first African leading a team at the league phase — and Liverpool<\/a> will host Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/a>, a repeat of their opening game last season. That was a 3-2 win for Liverpool at Anfield.<\/p>\n

Debut-making Sabah of Azerbaijan will start at Manchester United<\/a> on Sept. 10, the same day Como<\/a> host RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich<\/a> welcome Bodo\/Glimt.<\/p>\n

Tough October for PSG<\/p>\n

Manchester City<\/a> hosting PSG on Oct. 14 is a highlight of the second round of games played more than one month later, after the new and extended four-game slate for national teams.<\/p>\n

PSG will then face Barcelona<\/a> at Parc des Princes on Oct. 20, one day before Bayern Munich host Arsenal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barcelona’s next trip will then be a long way east to play Sabah in Baku on Nov. 25, before the Spanish champions hosts Man City on Dec. 8.<\/p>\n

Arsenal will host Real Madrid on Dec. 9 for the first of coach Mourinho’s scheduled two visits to London.<\/p>\n

Madrid will return on the final match day, Jan. 27, to face Shakhtar Donetsk at Chelsea<\/a>, where Mourinho won three Premier League<\/a> titles for the club’s Russian then-owner Roman Abramovich. Stamford Bridge is the Ukrainian champions’ choice of neutral venue for its four home games.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Mourinho will host his former club when Real Madrid take on Inter Milan.\u00a0Maria Gracia Jimenez\/Soccrates\/Getty ImagesWelcome to Norway<\/p>\n

The two Norwegian teams each must have a home game in January, during their domestic offseason when the weather should be most severe, and both will be in the seventh round.<\/p>\n

Bodo\/Glimt will welcome Atl\u00e9tico Madrid to the Arctic Circle at their tiny stadium on Jan. 19 and Viking will host PSV Eindhoven<\/a> in Stavanger one day later.<\/p>\n

Final round<\/p>\n

The final round on Jan. 27 sees all 18 games start at the same time, when it’s 9 p.m. in central Europe, and Barcelona will host newcomers Como coached by their former star Cesc F\u00e0bregas.<\/p>\n

Como get the toughest January run-in after hosting PSG one week earlier.<\/p>\n

PSG will finish by hosting Galatasaray, Arsenal will host Sabah and Bayern will host Real Betis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The top eight teams in the final standings go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th enter the knockout playoffs in February to decide the other eight teams in the round of 16. Teams placed 25th to 36th are eliminated.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Record 15-time European champions Real Madrid will start the league phase of the Champions League on Sept. 8…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[82],"class_list":["post-77780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-madrid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}