With Liverpool set to welcome Real Madrid to Anfield for the second straight year in the league phase of the Champions League, there’s been plenty of chatter this week about a new UEFA rule that states any club that has drawn the same opponent this season and last at home won’t be able to draw them again next season.
One caveat, of course, is that both sides would have to qualify. Another, perhaps more important one that often has been rather buried in all the talk of the new rule, is that it only
means two sides can’t draw each other at the either home or away three seasons in a row—but they can still draw and play each other in the league phase.
All it means is that were Liverpool and Madrid to draw each other next season, the game would have to take place in Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeau rather than at Anfield—and if the draw had been split between home and away last season and this, there would be no limits on drawing each other again at either club’s stadium.
“In accordance with paragraph 16.03 of the UEFA Champions League regulations,” reads UEFA’s ruling, “if any teams that already played against each other in the league phase in the 2024-25 season are again drawn against each other, with the same home team, in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League in this 2025-26 season, those teams will not be able to be drawn against each other with the same home team in the 2026-27 season (although, for the sake of clarity, those teams could still be drawn against each other at the venue of the other team).”
Liverpool, then, will simply not be able to draw Madrid at Anfield next season should both qualify. They can still more generally draw Madrid. They can also draw PSV Eindhoven again, home or away, having drawn them at Anfield this season after the two sides played at PSV’s Philips Stadion in their 2024-25 European campaign.
