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MONACO: Paris Saint-Germain were handed a tough start to the defense of its Champions League title with games against Bayern Munich and Barcelona, and Thursday’s draw also served up opponents from England and Spain from the pot of lowest-ranked teams.

PSG’s easiest opponents, in theory, in the league phase will be Newcastle and Athletic Bilbao.

Tottenham, the Europa League champion, also will play PSG in a repeat of their Super Cup game two weeks ago. PSG’s eight-game schedule is completed by Bayer Leverkusen, Atalanta and Sporting Lisbon.

Real Madrid also got a challenging draw, including a trip far east to play Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan — 6,420 kilometers (4,000 miles) from the Spanish capital.

Record 15-time champion Madrid got two English opponents from the pot of highest-ranked teams. Madrid will host Manchester City, which they beat in the knockout playoffs last season, and return to Liverpool after losing 2-0 at Anfield in the league phase last year.

Madrid also will face Juventus in a repeat of their 2017 final win, and two French opponents, Marseille and Monaco — where superstar forward Kylian Mbappe started his career.

Liverpool fans will welcome Trent Alexander-Arnold back to Anfield with Madrid, and have away trips to the vibrant stadiums of Inter Milan, Eintracht Frankfurt, Marseille and Galatasaray.

Bayern Munich will have rematches of two recent finals – at home to Chelsea where the German champion lost the 2012 title game on home turf, and away to PSG, which they beat in the 2020 final. Bayern also will go to Cyprus to face Pafos.

Manchester City will travel north of the Arctic Circle to face Bodo/Glimt of Norway, and host former fan favorite Kevin De Bruyne with his new club Napoli.

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

Four newcomers to the main stage of the Champions League are: Bodo/Glimt, Kairat Almaty, Russian-owned Pafos and Belgian champion Union Saint-Gilloise.

Games in Bodo and Almaty shape to be the longest-ever trips for visiting teams, and their home games in January among the coldest in competition history. Bodo play on a heated artificial turf field.

The computerized draw gave each team two opponents drawn from each of the four seeding pots. Teams are seeded based on their ranking over five seasons of results in UEFA competitions.

Retired great Zlatan Ibrahimovic picked each team out of its draw pot and former Ballon d’Or winner Kaka pushed a button to reveal the slate of opponents.

Games start on Sept. 16 and the final league phase matchday is Jan. 28. On that Wednesday evening, all 36 teams play in 18 games kicking off at the same time.

The top eight teams in the final standings advance to the round of 16 in March. Joining them will be winners of eight knockout playoffs, featuring teams ranked ninth to 24th, scheduled in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.

Sharjah, UAE: Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan says his team have no “specific targets” despite producing groundbreaking performances in recent ICC global events, ahead of a T20 international tri-series starting Friday.

Rashid’s men face Pakistan in the opening game in Sharjah, with the United Arab Emirates the other side taking part in the event which serves as a warm-up for next month’s Asia Cup, also in the UAE.

Afghanistan reached the semifinals of last year’s T20 World Cup in the United States and the Caribbean, and narrowly missed out on reaching the last four at the ODI Champions Trophy in Pakistan earlier in 2025.

Those performances followed an impressive showing at the 2023 one-day World Cup, when the Afghans produced statement wins over England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

“We do not have specific targets, and we do not want to put extra pressure on our players,” Rashid said Thursday when asked if Afghanistan are targeting the Asia Cup title.

“Our target is to play the brand of cricket we have played over the years.

“For us the main target is to put in 200 percent effort on the ground.

“I think we have been doing well in the ICC events and although we haven’t played T20I cricket over the last few months, the guys have been playing in T20 leagues around the world and that has helped.”

Afghanistan beat Pakistan 2-1 in a T20I series at the same venue in 2023.

The 16-man Afghan squad for the tri-series includes fast-rising mystery spinner AM Ghazanfar along with fellow spin bowlers Noor Ahmad, Mohammad Nabi, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid.

The Asia Cup gets under way on September 9, as teams ramp up their preparations for the 2026 T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.

Contrary to Afghanistan, Pakistan’s fortunes are dipping after they crashed out of the last T20 World Cup in the group stage before failing to win a match at the Champions Trophy.

This year they lost a T20 series in Bangladesh 2-1 but overcame the West Indies by the same margin.

Under new captain Salman Agha, Pakistan are going through a transition with former skippers Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan out of the T20 squad.

“We are trying to build a team and this tri-series and then the Asia Cup will be a good opportunity to achieve that,” said Agha.

“We know both these events will be challenging but we are ready.”

All three teams in the tri-series will play each other twice, with the top two to face off in a final on September 7.

Besides Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UAE, the Asia Cup will also include defending champions India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Oman and Hong Kong.