Who can Cardiff City face in the Champions League?
CARDIFF, WALES - 13 APRIL 2025: Cardiff City celebrate winning the 2024/2025 Genero Adran Premier league after fixture between Cardiff City Women FC & Briton Ferry Llansawel AFC Ladies at the Cardiff City Stadium, Wales. (Pic by John Smith/FAW)
We are only a week away from knowing who Cardiff City will take on in this season’s UEFA Champions League.
After Iain Darbyshire guided the Bluebirds to yet another Adran Premier title, Cardiff City will once again be Wales’ sole participants in the Champions League.
Europe’s elite competition is being expanded this year, meaning there are a few subtle changes to the qualifying rounds, which could suit City.
Here’s all you need to know ahead of the draw in Nyon next week.
How does it work?
The biggest change between this year’s tournament and ones in previous years is the fact that there is no more group stage. Instead, the women’s competition will mirror the men’s one and have one big league phase.
As a result, the qualifying rounds feature fewer teams than in past iterations.
Cardiff City will enter the competition in the Champions Path of the first qualifying round, which features teams who are ranked 29th and below in the UEFA coefficient.
There are 24 teams in total taking part in this phase of the competition, with twelve teams being seeded, and the other twelve unseeded. The Bluebirds will be unseeded.
The 24 teams will be split into six mini tournaments. In those tournaments will be two semi-finals, a third-place playoff, and a final. Only the winner of the final advances to the second qualifying round.
The third-place playoff will help in determining the coefficient for next season’s Champions League.
Every game in each mini tournament will be held in one country. Last year saw the Bluebirds play all their games in the Dutch city of Enschede.
Wales hasn’t hosted a mini tournament since 2016 when Cardiff Met welcomed Breiðablik, Spartak Subotica and NSA Sofia to the capital.
How are Wales looking after another Nations League relegation?
Who can Cardiff City play?
There are a few familiar teams that the Adran Premier side could face off against.
The first of which are in fact the highest seeds in the first qualifying round, and that’s Lithuanian champions Gintra. Gintra have won every Lithuanian title since 2005 and faced the Bluebirds back in 2023 in the semi-finals, winning 2-0.
The other team City could be seeking revenge on are Ljuboten of North Macedonia. These two played against each other in the third-place playoff in last season’s edition of the Champions League, and despite dominating their Macedonian counterparts, the Bluebirds lost 2-0.
Luxembourg champions Racing Union are another one of the highest seeds in the draw and often make the final in the first qualifying round but have never gone any further. Last year they were defeated by Galatasaray, who reached the group stages of the Champions League.
Meanwhile, one of the more historic teams in the draw are Kosovan champs Mitrovica. Their best run in the UWCL saw them reach the round of 32 in 2019. There they played European powerhouses Wolfsburg, where they were defeated 15-0 on aggregate by the Germans.
Can the Bluebirds make history?
If you look at the history of Welsh teams in the Champions League, the indications don’t look promising for the Bluebirds.
No Welsh team has ever made it out of the first qualifying round, while no team from this country has won a game in the competition since 2019.
Cardiff City are also the third lowest ranked side in the entire competition, and therefore a tough ride is expected, but that’s not to say this will be an impossible job for the Bluebirds.
The performance against Ljuboten last year showed how close the team is to getting a positive result in Europe, and if they get a bit of luck with the draw, who knows what’s possible.
And with a host of other unseeded teams who could also spring a surprise, this could well be the year that an Adran Premier team does something special in continental competition.
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE – FIRST QUALIFYING ROUND TEAMS
Seeded: Gintra (Lithuania), Racing Union (Luxembourg), Flora Tallinn (Estonia), Kiryat Gat (Israel), Lanchkhuti (Georgia), Agarista Anenii Noi (Moldova), NSA Sofia (Bulgaria), Mitrovica (Kosovo), Spartak Myjava (Slovakia), Ljuboten (North Macedonia), Agram (Croatia), Budućnost (Montenegro)
Unseeded: ABB Fomget (Turkey), GKS Katowice (Poland), AEK Athens (Greece), Athlone Town (Republic of Ireland), Swieqi United (Malta), Riga FC (Latvia), Cliftonville (Northern Ireland), Pyunik (Armenia), Neftchi Baku (Azerbaijan), Cardiff City (Wales), NSÍ Runavík (Iceland), Lions Gibraltar (Gibraltar)
