Monaco, Aug 28: José Mourinho and Fenerbahce fell short of returning to the Champions League, losing 1-0 at Benfica in the qualifying playoffs.
Benfica – the first club Mourinho coached – had two goals disallowed on video review in the first half before its Turkish forward Kerem Aktürkoglu 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 (1600 GMT) Thursday at a beachside concert hall and conference venue in Monaco.Who is in the Champions League draw? 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.
Former winners
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. (AP)
