Benfica edges past Mourinho's Fenerbahce to complete 36-team Champions League lineup

principality of monaco — José Mourinho and Fenerbahce cut down unawares of reverting to the Champions conference on Wednesday, losing 1-0 at Benfica in the qualifying playoffs on Wednesday.

Benfica — the first club Mourinho coached — had two goals disallowed on video review in the first half before its Turkish forward Kerem Aktürkoğlu scored with a rising shot in the 35th minute for the only goal over the two legs.

Club Brugge, Copenhagen and Qarabag of Azerbaijan also advanced to complete the 36-team lineup for the league phase, with the draw being made Thursday.

Mourinho is a two-time Champions League winner but has not coached in the main stage of the marquee competition for six seasons. Fenerbahce’s absence now stretches to 17 seasons.

Brugge routed Rangers 6-0 for an aggregate score of 9-1. The Belgian side already had an early lead before Rangers defender Max Aarons was sent off in the eighth minute.

Qarabag is back in the Champions League eight years after its debut campaign, winning 5-4 on aggregate over Ferencvaros despite a 3-2 loss in Baku on Wednesday.

Copenhagen won 2-0 at home to Basel to advance 3-1 on aggregate.

The draw ceremony starts 6 p.m. Local time Thursday at a beachside concert hall and conference venue in Monaco.

A record six teams from England are in the competition this year. More than half — 19 in total — are from the four highest-ranked countries: England, Italy, Spain and Germany.

Newcomers in the main phase are Bodo/Glimt of Norway, Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan, Pafos of Cyprus and Union Saint-Gilloise of Belgium.

The Champions League will go further north than ever before, with Bodo located inside the Arctic Circle, and further east, to Almaty, near Kazakhstan’s border with China. Pafos, the Russian-owned champion of Cyprus, was created just 11 years ago in a merger of two clubs.

Athletic Bilbao heads the teams returning after a long absence. The emblematic team from Spain’s Basque region last played in the 2014-15 group stage.

Olympiakos missed four editions and Villarreal returns after losing in the semifinals to Liverpool in 2022.

There is no team from Ukraine for first time in 20 years. In that period, Shakhtar Donetsk featured 17 times and Dynamo Kyiv 10. Russian teams are banned from all European competitions for the fourth straight season since the full military invasion of Ukraine.

The 71st edition of the European Cup or Champions League will include 14 different former champions with a combined 50 titles, including holder Paris Saint-Germain.

Now that five-time winning coach Carlo Ancelotti left Real Madrid to coach Brazil, Pep Guardiola is the leading coach in this edition. Guardiola has won three Champions League titles, with Barcelona in 2009 and 2011 and his current team Manchester City in 2023.

The other previous title-winning coaches are Luis Enrique, with Barcelona in 2015 and PSG last season, and Barcelona’s Hansi Flick, who won with Bayern Munich in 2020.

This is the second season of the league phase format with 36 teams playing eight different opponents and ranked in a single-standings table.

The weighted schedule gives each team two opponents drawn from each of the four seeding pots Thursday in Monaco. Teams are seeded based on their ranking over five seasons of results in UEFA competitions.

Games start on Sept. 16 and the final matchday is Jan. 28. Bodo/Glimt should play one home game in January on its heated artificial turf in the Norwegian offseason.

The top eight teams in the final standings advance to the round of 16 in March. Teams ranked ninth to 24th go to the round of two-legged knockout playoffs in February.

The final at the Puskas Arena in Budapest is on May 30. Just 12 days later the World Cup starts in Mexico City.

UEFA has allocated 2.47 billion euros in prize money from total commercial revenue of 4.4 billion euros across all its European club competitions this season.

The lowest-ranked team, Kairat, is guaranteed at least 20 million euros from UEFA. High-ranked teams Real Madrid and PSG will get at least 60 million euros. Teams earn more for each win and for advancing to the knockout rounds.

The title winner should receive about 150 million euros in prize money.

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