NYON, Switzerland (AP) — Record 15-time European champion Real Madrid will start the league phase of the Champions League on Sept. 8 when it hosts Inter Milan.
Match dates for each of the 36 teams' eight-game schedules were published Saturday by UEFA, two days after the draw in Monaco.
In two early starts on the opening day, Club Brugge will host Aston Villa and AEK Athens will welcome LASK, the newcomer from Austria. Both games will kick off at 6:45
p.m. (1645 GMT).
One day later, defending champion Paris Saint-Germain will host Slovan Bratislava — coached by Yaya Touré, the first African leading a team at the league phase — and Liverpool will host Atletico Madrid, a repeat of their opening game last season. That was a 3-2 win for Liverpool at Anfield.
Debut-making Sabah of Azerbaijan will start at Manchester United on Sept. 10, the same day Como hosts Leipzig and Bayern Munich welcomes Bodø/Glimt.
Manchester City hosting PSG on Oct. 14 is a highlight of the second round of games played more than one month later, after the new and extended four-game slate for national teams.
PSG will then face Barcelona at Parc des Princes on Oct. 20, one day before Bayern Munich hosts Arsenal.
Barcelona’s next trip will then be a long way east to play Sabah in Baku on Nov. 25, before the Spanish champion hosts Man City on Dec. 8.
Arsenal will host Real Madrid on Dec. 9 for the first of coach Jose Mourinho's scheduled two visits to London.
Madrid will return on the final match day, Jan. 27, to face Shakhtar Donetsk at Chelsea, where Mourinho won three Premier League titles for the club's Russian then-owner Roman Abramovich. Stamford Bridge is the Ukrainian champion’s choice of neutral venue for its four home games.
The two Norwegian teams each must have a home game in January, during their domestic offseason when the weather should be most severe, and both will be in the seventh round.
Bodø/Glimt will welcome host Atletico Madrid to the Arctic Circle at its tiny stadium on Jan. 19 and Viking will welcome PSV Eindhoven to Stavanger one day later.
The final round on Jan. 27 sees all 18 games start at the same time, when it’s 9 p.m. in central Europe, and Barcelona will host newcomer Como coached by its former star Cesc Fabregas.
Como gets the toughest January run-in after hosting PSG one week earlier.
PSG will finish by hosting Galatasaray, Arsenal will host Sabah and Bayern will host Real Betis.
The top eight teams in the final standings go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th enter the knockout playoffs in February to decide the other eight teams in the round of 16. Teams placed 25th to 36th are eliminated.
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