Paris Saint-Germain retained Europe's biggest club prize on penalties in Budapest
Paris Saint-Germain won the 2025–26 Champions League by beating Arsenal 4–3 in a shoot-out after a 1–1 draw. Only Real Madrid, in 2016–17, had previously retained the trophy in the Champions League era. The same season sent a club from Almaty on UEFA's longest-ever trip and an Arctic side into the main draw.
This was the 71st edition of UEFA's top club competition and the 34th since the European Cup took its current name. It drew 82 clubs from 53 of UEFA's 55 member associations; the gaps were Liechtenstein, which runs no domestic league, and Russia, which remained suspended. England supplied six entrants, a first for any country: coefficient rankings earned it an extra place, and Tottenham Hotspur came in as holders of the previous Europa League.
Qualifying opened with first-round ties on 8 and 9 July 2025 and ran through a play-off round that finished on 27 August. Beaten clubs were rarely sent straight home; depending on the round and path, they dropped into the Europa League or the Conference League. Because Paris Saint-Germain had already qualified through its domestic league, the berth reserved for the holders was redistributed, lifting Olympiacos directly into the league phase and moving Slovan Bratislava and Qarabağ up a qualifying round.
Monaco's Grimaldi Forum hosted the league phase draw on 28 August 2025. Thirty-six clubs were split into four pots of nine, with the holders seeded top, and software then handed each club eight different opponents, two from every pot, with no meetings between clubs of the same country. Four newcomers reached this stage, among them Pafos and Union Saint-Gilloise. Kairat, from Almaty, became the easternmost qualifier ever and set a UEFA distance mark with a 4,294-mile (6,911 km) journey to face Sporting CP in Lisbon. Bodø/Glimt, based inside the Arctic Circle, became the competition's northernmost European entrant and the first Norwegian club in the main draw since 2007–08, while no Ukrainian team got that far for the first time since 2005–06.
In all, 16 national associations were represented once the league phase began. The final was played on 30 May 2026 at the Puskás Aréna. Victory there carried the Parisians into the 2026–27 league phase, the final of the 2026 FIFA Intercontinental Cup and the group stage of the 2029 Club World Cup, and set up a 2026 UEFA Super Cup against Aston Villa, who had won the Europa League.
Source: 2025–26 UEFA Champions League
