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The draw for the 2024/25 Champions League phase has given Arsenal matches against Inter Milan, Paris Saint-Germain, Atalanta, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dinamo Zagreb, Sporting Lisbon, Monaco and Girono.
The all-new 36-team format of the competition means The Gunners will no longer play all of these opponents home and away, so the matches against PSG, Shakhtar, Zagreb and Monaco will be at the Emirates Stadium, with trips to Milan, Atalanta, Lisbon and Girona. Each team will play a minimum of eight games, instead of six, and a maximum of seventeen.
The order of the matches, dates and kick-off times will be announced on Saturday. The competition will begin in September and will run until January, with the following match weeks:
Matchday 1: September 17–19, 2024
Matchday 2: October 1/2, 2024
Matchday 3: October 22/23, 2024
Matchday 4: November 5/6, 2024
Matchday 5: November 26/27, 2024
Matchday 6: December 10/11, 2024
Matchday 7: January 21/22, 2025
Matchday 8: January 29 2025
Reaction on the forum:
Aevi: “My main issue at the moment is that ~67% of teams move on to the knockout stage. Even though there’s an added factor of ~22% getting to skip a round, that many teams moving on make the group stage seem a little trivial.
Final group-stage day might be nuts though with teams flying around the table goal-to-goal.”
Riou: “This has become stupid now really, but happy with the draw for us.
Only negative is we didn’t get Sparta, would have loved to see Rozza and his son Simanu back at our ground again.”
Mandersonian: “The schedule release will make or break this format. For instance, if we have Inter on the last day and one or both of us are comfortably in the top 8 it’s a worthless fixture. Everyone will be looking to escape the playoff round but I don’t think it will actually create many interesting scenarios.”
Entropics: “The format is terrible, those mildly intrigued about it will realize it the moment the games start rolling and realize there is just more low-quality slop now to go through”
