Champions League Bingo Cards

Champions League 2024-2025

Just in case there hasn’t been enough football recently, the Champions League is back! But this time, with four extra teams and a whole new format just to confuse us (don’t worry, we’ll explain everything). For now, block out your calendar and get your bingo cards at the ready, cos Europe’s biggest football competition has been running since July last year!

The final will be played on 31st May 2025, with either Barcelona or Inter lining up against either Arsenal or PSG.

Let’s begin with those pesky format changes…

Champions League Format Changes

Previously, the competition included a group stage. Meaning you’d face each team in your group of 4 twice (both home and away), racking up as many points as you can. The two teams with the highest point tally would go through to the knockout stages. But for almost no reason whatsoever, it’s been decided that this format (which always worked before) is no longer acceptable. So someone’s pulled a new idea out from a certain orifice.

From this year onwards, there will now be 36 teams in 1 league instead of 32 teams across 8 groups. Because…meh…why not?

• Each team will have 8 games randomly drawn (4 home and 4 away), giving everyone 8 chances to pick up as many points as they can (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss).
• The teams that finish in 1st-8th position will automatically qualify for the ‘round of 16’ knockout stage.
• Teams that finish 9th-24th will face each other in an extra ‘play off round’, the winners of which will also play in the ‘round of 16’ knockout stage.
• Teams that finish 25th-36th are eliminated for being pants and should think about what they’ve done.

From the ‘round of 16’ knockout stage, the format remains exactly the same. There’s 2 games in each knockout phase, allowing everyone to play both home and away with an aggregate scoreline. As ever, the final will have just 1 game on neutral territory.

Is this more complicated approach better? No one knows yet. It might well be way more exciting to watch. Which I’m sure was the main aim all along. It can’t have anything to do with all the extra income from adding more games…

Last year’s recap

The 23/24 competition was won by Real Madrid, beating Borussia Dortmund in the dramatic final. It was a disappointing year for English teams as both Manchester United and Newcastle United came last in their groups, meaning they never even progressed to the knockout stage. Still, at least they picked themselves up and bounced back…by not even qualifying a year later. Arsenal and Manchester City both got slightly further, eventually being knocked out in the quarter finals.

Harry Kane remains trophyless as not only did Bayern Munich do poorly in the Bundesliga, but they also got knocked out of the Champions league in the semi-final. Ouch.

A look at this year

Due to the high quality of everyone involved, this competition has always been difficult to predict. These are the best teams in Europe with the best players in the world, so literally anything can happen. It’s not like the Premier League, where there’s realistically 2 teams capable of winning. These are the best players in the world, meaning there’s realistically as many as 12 teams who could raise that trophy.

Qualifying from England this year are Manchester City (shocker), Arsenal, Liverpool, and Aston Villa, all of whom have a great chance of going the distance. Tottenham and Chelsea both narrowly missed out, meaning they will instead play in the Champions League’s less favourable sibling…the Europa League.

Whilst it’s difficult to predict the final outcome, you can certainly predict excitement, drama, goals, heartbreak, and Micah Richards’ laugh. So download a bingo card and let the games begin!

Champions League Bingo Cards

To celebrate this fantastic competition, we’ve created free Champions League bingo cards to help ease the pain. They include pundit and commentator cliches as well as on-field events, many of which are likely to occur as the season plays out. You can either rely on these or create your own, then print them out and play.