How many points do you need in the Champions League and Europa League for the last 16 and the play-offs?

In the two editions of the Champions League played with a single table, eighth place, the last one that leads straight to the last 16, went both times to a team on 16 points: Aston Villa in 2024-25, Manchester City in 2025-26. Twenty-fourth, the last place worth a play-off, stopped at 11 points in 2024-25 and at 9 in 2025-26. Those are the figures from ESPN's final tables, the same source as the table we publish.

In the Europa League eighth place went to 14 points in 2024-25 and 16 in 2025-26, twenty-fourth to 10 and 9. In the 2026-27 season, after 4 matchdays of 8 and with the ESPN table read on 14 November 2026, eighth place in the Champions League is on 9 points and twenty-fourth on 4; in the Europa League on 7 and 4. Every team has 4 matches left, so 12 points still available.

The cut-offs in the two single-table editions

Final league-phase tables, 8 matches per team, source ESPN. The top eight go to the last 16, ninth to twenty-fourth to the play-offs, twenty-fifth and below are out.

Five lines out of eight decided on goal difference

The table shows something the points total alone hides: in five cases out of eight the team just inside and the team just outside had the same points. In the 2024-25 Europa League Rangers and Bodø/Glimt both had 14 points, and the last-16 place went to the better goal difference, +6 against +3. In 2025-26 Roma made the top eight with 16 points and +7, while Genk stayed ninth with 16 points and +4.

The same happens at the bottom. In the 2025-26 Champions League Benfica took the last play-off place with 9 points and a goal difference of -2; Marseille, also on 9, went out with -3. In 2024-25 Club Brugge and Dinamo Zagreb were both on 11, and goal difference, -4 against -7, decided who stayed.

That is why «how many points do you need» has no exact answer: the numbers say where the line stopped, not that the same total will be enough. And two editions are few to talk about an average, but they are all that exist with this format.

Champions League 2026-27: the table at halfway

After 4 matchdays, with the ESPN table read on 14 November 2026, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid are on 12 points, a perfect record. From fourth to twelfth there are nine teams on 9 points: Como, Barcelona, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Liverpool, Club Brugge, Sporting CP, Real Betis and Borussia Dortmund. Eighth place currently belongs to Liverpool, on goal difference.

Further down, from twentieth to twenty-fifth there are six teams on 4 points: Roma, Shakhtar Donetsk, Viking, Atlético Madrid, PSV Eindhoven and Bodø/Glimt. The play-off line runs through the middle of them, between PSV in twenty-fourth and Bodø/Glimt in twenty-fifth.

• Como fourth on 9 points: to reach the eighth-place total of the two previous editions, 16, they need 7 points from 4 matches.
• Inter fifteenth on 6 points: 3 short of 9, the lowest play-off cut-off; 10 short of 16.
• Roma twentieth on 4 points: 5 short of 9; 7 short of 11, the highest play-off cut-off.
• Napoli twenty-seventh on 3 points: 6 short of 9, 8 short of 11.

Champions League matchday five starts on 24 November.

Europa League 2026-27: the table at halfway

On the same reading of 14 November, Benfica, Bournemouth and Ferencváros are on 12 points. Eighth place belongs to Beşiktaş with 7 points, and the five teams right behind are also on 7: Dinamo Zagreb, Levski Sofia, Sunderland, NEC Nijmegen and Lyon. From twenty-second to twenty-sixth there are five teams on 4 points, with Sturm Graz in twenty-fourth.

• Juventus fifth on 10 points: 4 short of 14, the lowest eighth-place cut-off; 6 short of 16, the highest.
• Milan twenty-eighth on 3 points: 6 short of 9, 7 short of 10.

Europa League matchday five starts on 26 November.

How to read these numbers

• The cut-offs come from just two seasons: they describe where the line stopped, not where it will stop.
• At halfway the teams have not faced the same opponents: two sides level on points can have four very different matches ahead.
• Where the line falls between teams level on points, goal difference decides, and with 4 matchdays left it still moves a lot.

The league-phase format, and why the first matchdays say little: How the Champions League works: the single-table format explained

The latest Champions League round, with form and measured margins: Champions League matchday 4: what do form, head-to-heads and margins show?

The latest Europa League round, with form and measured margins: Europa League matchday 4 in numbers: form, goals and margins match by match

The current-season figures are updated to 14 November 2026, after matchday four. The full tables of both cups are in the statistics section; the comparison between operators on each match is on the odds page.