Manchester City are back after a season away, and the Women’s Champions League opens with Real Madrid against PSG
Five matches on Tuesday night start the 2026-27 Women’s Champions League league phase, with Bayern Munich against Manchester City at 10.15pm IST and Real Madrid against PSG at 12.30am.
Sep 22, 2026
The Women’s Champions League league phase starts on Tuesday night with five matches, two of them at 10.15pm IST and three more at 12.30am. Real Madrid against Paris Saint-Germain is the pick of them, and Manchester City are back in the competition after a season away.
Eighteen teams, six games each
This is the second season the competition has run a single league table instead of groups. Eighteen clubs each play six different opponents, three at home and three away, drawn two from each seeding pot. The top four go straight into the quarter-finals. Teams finishing fifth to twelfth get a two-legged play-off in February for the remaining last-eight places, and anyone who ends up thirteenth or lower is finished for the season.
The league phase runs to 16 December across six matchdays, the play-offs are in early February, and the final is at the Stadion Narodowy in Warsaw at the end of May 2027.
Real Madrid against PSG on opening night
Real Madrid host PSG at 12.30am IST, which is the sort of opening fixture a team hopes to avoid. The two were drawn together in last season’s league phase as well, and Real won that one 2-1 in Paris in October. PSG still hold the overall record between them, three wins from five meetings with one draw. Six matches is not many, and the gap between fourth place and thirteenth can come down to one bad night in September.
City return, and Bayern are waiting
Manchester City play Bayern Munich at 10.15pm IST, the earlier of Tuesday’s two slots. City missed last season’s competition altogether and come back as Women’s Super League champions, with Khadija Shaw, whose 21 league goals won her a third straight Golden Boot. Bayern went out in the semi-finals last season, losing 5-3 on aggregate to the eventual winners Barcelona, and still have Klara Bühl and Pernille Harder to call on.
Inter play Häcken in the other early game, with Juventus at home to Benfica and Arsenal hosting HB Køge in the late slot. Arsenal won the competition in 2024-25 and lost in the semi-finals last season. Køge have not been in it since 2021-22.
The holders play on Wednesday
Barcelona, who beat OL Lyonnes 4-0 in Oslo in May for a fourth title, open at home to Paris FC on Wednesday. The other three Wednesday games are OH Leuven against Roma, Servette against Lyonnes and Chelsea against Austria Wien.