How many Champions League games are there per season?

The UEFA Champions League is the most prestigious Club football competition. Surprisingly, some teams want to break away from the European Super League. Anyway, in this post, you’ll find out how many Champions League games there are per season.

Remember, we have a new Champions League format which will kick-start in the 2024/25 season.

Nonetheless, we’ll highlight how many matches were played in the old and new formats.

The Old Champions League Format: How Many Matches Were Played?

The old Champions League format is broadly categorized into two:

Group Phase
Knockout Phase

How Many Matches Were Played In The Group Stages?

Remember, the (old) Champions League has 4 teams per group in 8 groups. In total, 32 teams compete in the Champions League.

Each team play against 3 other teams in the group twice (home and away). Hence, a team will play 6 Group matches in the Champions League group stage (3 X 2 = 6).

Now, let’s calculate how many matches all teams would play in the entire group phase.

Do not forget that we have 32 teams to compete in the Champions League. Therefore, we have 16 matches every Champions League week.

Also, remember that each team will play 6 times. So, there are 6 weeks of the Champions League group stage.

Therefore, the total number of Champions League group matches is 96 (16 matches per week X 6 weeks).

How Many Matches Are Played In The Knockout Phase?

First, let’s break down the knockout phases.

Round of 16
Quarter Final
Semi Final
Final

(It’ll be good to learn how the Champions League draws are done.)

Round of 16

As the name indicates, 16 teams will play against each other. So, there should be 8 fixtures if they are to meet just once.

However, each fixture would be played twice. So, there are 16 matches in the Champions League R016 in total (8 fixtures X 2 matches [home and away] = 16).

Quarter Final

The Quarter Final is otherwise known as the last 8. 8 teams would produce 4 fixtures twice (home and away); hence 4 X 2 = 8.

In a nutshell, there are 8 matches in the Quarter Final of the Champions League.

Semifinal

There are 4 teams in the semis.

Following the same procedure as above, there are 4 matches in the semifinals.

Final

As you may know, the final of a Champions League match is not 2-legged. It is only one fixture.

Therefore, only 1 match is played in a Champions League final.

So, in summary, let’s add up all the matches. The table below shows the breakdown of the total number of Champions League matches.

Champions League Stages	Number of UCL Games played
Group Stages	96
R016	16
Quarter Final	8
Semi-Final	4
Final	1
Total	125

From the table above that summarizes all breakdowns and calculations, it is clear that 125 Champions League games are played in a season.

(You may want to find out how many Premier League matches are played per season)

The New Champions League Format: How Many Matches Are There?

If you have read about the new format of the Champions League, you’ll understand that there will be 10 matches in the Group stage.

Hence, there would be a total of 94 group-stage matches.

The number of matches in the knockout phase would remain the same as the existing Champions League format – 29.

Champions League Stages	Number of UCL Games played
Group Stages	98
R016	16
Quarter Final	8
Semi-Final	4
Final	1
Total	127

Therefore, there would be a total of 127 games in the new Champions League format, starting from the 2024/25 season.

Final Thought

At this point, you must have found out how many Champions League games there are per season.

To remind you, there are 125 Champions League matches per season.

However, in the 2024/25 season, there would be 127 matches per season.

In essence, there would be 2 more matches played in a season in the new Champions League than in the current format. That means each team would have to play 4 more matches.

Further Reading: