MONACO (AP) — The Champions League will feature a series of replays of recent finals in the wider series of matches played in the Champions League on Thursday. new format of the most important European football competition.

Real Madrid will play their last three Champions League titles again against Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund, in a revised schedule of eight games for each team now that the traditional group stage has been scrapped.

Madrid has French superstar Kylian Mbappé added to his great team since beating Dortmund in last season’s final. It also defeated Liverpool in the 2022 and the 2018 final, as well as a record 15 European titles.

Madrid host Dortmund and travel to Liverpool, but the match dates will not be announced until Saturday.

Manchester City will also get a Champions League final reunion, with hosts Inter Milan, who they defeated. win his European title in 2023.

Bayern Munich host Paris Saint-Germain in a rematch of the 2020 final which the German giant won 1-0.

Defending champions Madrid’s opponents also include home games against seven-time European champions AC Milan, Salzburg and Stuttgart, with away games against Europa League winners Atalanta. Madrid wins UEFA Super Cup this month — and twice to France, to play against Lille and debutant Brest.

An elaborate draw ceremony in Monaco, assisted on stage by Cristiano Ronaldo, produced eight teams with opponents for all 36 teams in the larger and more lucrative Champions League, which has a prize money fund of at least 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion).

The traditional 32-team group stage that has been played every season since 2003 has been scrapped in favor of a single-tier competition. Now, 36 teams each play eight games against eight different opponents through January.

The top eight in the January rankings advance directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams ranked ninth through 24th advance to the knockout play-offs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.

Man City’s away games at PSG and Juventus were offset by some of the easier home games: against Club Brugge, Feyenoord and Sparta Prague.

The English champions also have to travel to Slovan Bratislava, one of the lowest-ranked teams, which meant they had to avoid Girona, their Spanish sibling in an Abu Dhabi-backed global network of clubs. Man City are the flagship club and their owners had to place their Girona shares in a blind trust to comply with UEFA’s integrity rules.

Bayern also host Barcelona, ​​who they beat 8-2 in the quarter-finals of the 2020 title race, and travel to Aston Villa, the surprise winner of the 1982 European Cup final.

Liverpool host Bayer Leverkusen, the German champions led by former star midfielder Xabi Alonso, in a high-profile match of the expanded competition.

Leverkusen hosts city rivals Internazionale and AC Milan and travels to Atlético Madrid.

The new-style draw took place during a gala ceremony in a concert hall on the Monaco beach, with football greats Ronaldo and Gianluigi Buffon in attendance.

After Buffon took each team’s ball from one of four pots – seeded based on their results from the previous five years in European club competitions – Ronaldo theatrically pressed a button to reveal how a software program had assigned two opponents from each of the four seeding pots.

The new format was created by UEFA under pressure from influential clubs who wanted more guaranteed matches and a wider variety of high-profile opponents, as they believed the old group stage was predictable and undramatic. The later knockout stages were usually reserved for wealthy clubs from the richest national leagues.

“When you see the number of league games in this format, it’s incredible. It’s amazing,” said PSG president Nasser al-Khelaïfi. “That’s what everyone wanted to change.”

Al-Khelaïfi heads the influential European Club Association that negotiated the new format with UEFA. They also manage the competition’s commercial strategy in a joint venture.

The new league stage will have 144 total matches, compared to 96 in last season’s group stage. By also adding a new knockout play-off round in February, the competition will have a total of 189 matches instead of 125.

This Champions League edition already got a fresh look by unexpected entries from each of the five major national competitionsall of whom were among the lowest ranked players.

Villa will return for the first time since their defence of the European Cup title was ended in 1983 by Juventus, who will once again host them.

Bologna last qualified in 1964, Stuttgart are back after a 14-year gap, while Girona and Brest make their European competition debuts. Brest host reigning champions Madrid and Leverkusen in a borrowed stadium in nearby Breton town of Guingamp because the 102-year-old stadium is outdated.

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