Who Are Real Madrid Playing in 2025

After Real Madrid said farewell to Carlo Ancelotti for the second time, Los Blancos have tasked new manager Xabi Alonso with delivering the club’s 16th European crown.

Ancelotti won three of those across his two spells at the Santiago Bernabéu and is a tough act to follow. But Alonso is no stranger to success at this level. As a player, he was part of La Décima in 2013–14, while his transformative impact as a coach at former club Bayer Leverkusen was what prompted Madrid to hire him this summer—after he already turned down Liverpool last year.

Real Madrid fans and executives alike expect nothing but success in the Champions League, so the price for not getting to at least the semifinals, as Ancelotti found out, could be high.

First, eight league phase opponents stand between Real Madrid and the knockout rounds.

Full List of Real Madrid’s 2025–26 Champions League Opponents

The league phase will contain plenty of extremes for Real Madrid. There is perhaps no tougher match than a trip to Liverpool, which also means an early return to Anfield for Trent Alexnader-Arnold. It’s also a fifth year in a row facing Manchester City and Pep Guardiola. At the opposite end of that spectrum, Kairat Almaty were delighted just to qualify for the first time—that being said an 8,000-mile round trip to Kazakhstan will not be for the faint hearted.

Encounters against Benfica, Monaco, Marseille, Olympiacos, and even a Juventus side far removed from its historic vintage are significantly kinder.

2025–26 Champions League: Full League Phase Schedule

The exact fixture list will not be confirmed until Saturday, August 30. But UEFA has long since confirmed the dates of each mathday in this season’s league phase.