The tournament proper begins with a group stage of 32 teams, divided into 8 groups. Seeding is used whilst making the draw for this stage, whilst teams from the same country may not be drawn into groups together. Each team meets the others in its group home and away in a round-robin format. The top two teams from each group progress to the round of 16, which commences the knock-out tournament. The third team enters the UEFA Europa League.For this stage, one group's winners play against another group's runners-up, and teams from the same country may not be drawn against each other. From the quarter-finals onwards, the draw is entirely random, with country protection no longer in force.
The group stage is played through the autumn, whilst the knock-out stage starts after a winter break. The knock-out ties are played in a two-legged format, with the exception of the final. This is typically held in the final two weeks of May.
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