The league stage of the new Champions League for this season will see holders Real Madrid host Borussia Dortmund and play away to Liverpool in a rematch of the championship game from the previous year.

The draw for this league was held on Thursday.

The best club competition in Europe has a new format: instead of being divided into groups, all 36 clubs are now combined into one league and will play eight games against eight different opponents.

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In addition, Madrid—who won a record-tying 15th European Cup—will visit Atalanta and play AC Milan at home.

Madrid recently signed French sensation Kylian Mbappe.

Real defeated Atalanta, the Europa League champions from the previous season, in the Uefa Super Cup earlier this month in Warsaw.

Notably, Liverpool—who returned to the Champions League after a one-season break—will play tournament newcomers Girona in addition to Milan.

The possibility of hosting German champions Bayer Leverkusen, who are led by former Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso, will likely thrill Anfield supporters the most.

The 2023 winners of the league, Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, will face both Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus away from home and against Italian champions Inter Milan.

They did, however, also face more comfortable opponents, such as Slovan Bratislava, Club Brugge, and Sparta Prague, none of which had ever been in the actual Champions League of today.

There will be other notable matchups between Bayern Munich and PSG and Barcelona, as well as Arsenal and Inter and Paris.

The 36 teams that are competing in the Champions League are divided into four seeded pots of nine for the draw, up from the previous 32 teams.

Each team plays two opponents, one at home and one away, from each of the four pots.

The opening games are scheduled for September 17, 18, and 19.

Following the two additional matchdays in the new league phase in January, the top eight teams in the 36-team classification will move on to the round of 16.

The teams placed ninth through twenty-fourth will go to a play-off round, from which the eight remaining teams will advance to the round of sixteen.

As in the past, the bottom 12 clubs in the league phase will be eliminated completely; no clubs will automatically qualify for the Europa League.

36 clubs will now compete in the Europa League and the third-tier Conference League, whose drawings are on Friday.

However, the latter competition will only have six matchdays in the league round.