We are in the middle of the second year of revival uefa champions leagueAnd we have already seen the dramatic impact of the switch to a 36-team, Swiss-model league stage in 2024, first seen in Europe.
To take an example, this year the final matchday of the league stage featured benfica goalkeeper Anatoly Trubin Providing an iconic moment, like He scored with a header in the 98th minute against real Madrid To prevent elimination and push the Portuguese club into the knockout round. On the other hand, the format of the competition is now so confusing that Trubin himself Didn’t know how important it was His goal was a boost for Benfica’s Champions League hopes.
It’s clear that there is no perfect solution, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try! With the knockout playoff rounds taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday, we decided to ask our writers: How would you fix the Champions League format that might be possible?
Here are three fascinating proposals from Mark Ogden, Gabriele Marcotti, and Bill Connelly, ranging from innovative to subtly effective.
Two mini leagues, one huge playoff round
UEFA has introduced several iterations of the Champions League since the change to the old European Cup format in the early 1990s. Despite the changes and changes, the competition is still the pinnacle of club football, and they have not yet managed to break through.
But the knockout stage is where the magic happens. This is part of the problem UEFA needs to overcome, because no matter how many times they reboot the group stages, those early rounds will never have the danger and excitement of the classic two-legged, winner-takes-all encounters.
The only reason Match Day 8 of the league stage was so thrilling was because it had that knockout feel, with Benfica’s 4-2 win against Real Madrid – courtesy of a stoppage-time goal from goalkeeper Trubin – as good as any knockout tie.
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Keeping all this in mind, how do you fix the format to bring some liveliness into the group/league stage? We’re never going to go straight from the first round to the knockouts – there’s too much risk and there isn’t enough guaranteed money for the top clubs to sanction it – so there has to be some form of group stage.
So why not split the league stage into two and have the two leagues play in the knockout stages, similar to how the AFC and NFC are played in the NFL playoffs? Instead of a bloated 36-team league, make it two 18-team sections, with only the top two in each guaranteed a round of 16 spot. The remaining 24, 12 in each section, will go into a supersized playoff round – with an open draw!
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Leboeuf: Benfica goalkeeper’s goal was a Champions League miracle
Jurgen Klinsmann and Frank Leboeuf react to Anatoly Trubin’s last-minute goal to send Benfica into the Champions League playoffs.
Let’s make sure only the best teams get an advantage, so if you finish outside the top two, you can face anyone in the playoffs. You can finally play Real Madrid or Bodo/ShineBut this will depend on the luck of the draw rather than position-based preference. And all teams will still play eight league stage games, so there will be no loss in match revenue
This still won’t be an ideal format. A lot of teams will still be able to qualify with a mediocre league stage, and you could argue that there will be just as many relatively meaningless games, but I’d armory vs PSG or vs Real Madrid. Bayern Munich It matters more in November than it does now. Having only two automatic spots available will ramp up the tension at the top, and what we all want to see is the big guns playing like that’s what they mean. –Mark Ogden
Clubs get to choose their opponents
We’re asked to be realistic here, so keep that in mind. We’re not going back to the one league/one team days, and we’re not going to go completely back to the straight knockouts. (Plus, we effectively have a separate direct knockout tournament after the group stage anyway.)
I don’t think there is much wrong with the current format, but the main problem is with the seedings. That is, it is not particularly meaningful!
last year, liverpool Took top place in the group stage, and their “reward” for doing so was a showdown Paris Saint GermainWhich finished 15th (and eliminated the Reds). Next was Real Madrid, which finished 11th and finished playing Manchester City (22nd). Sure, both teams gained nothing, but it was “punishment” for both of them. If Real Madrid had finished just one place lower, they would have faced – no disrespect – Celtic. Who would you like to play instead?
When we rank teams in the group stage based on single points (or, worse, goal difference), it’s not really a scientific assessment of their relative strength. So let’s make seeding make some sense: let clubs choose their opponents.
How will this work? Real Madrid finished ninth, making them the top-ranked team in the knockout round of the playoffs. Instead of being forced to play the 24th team (Benfica), they can choose any playoff team. Ahead, international In 10th…they can also choose poison!
Perhaps Real Madrid don’t want to see Jose Mourinho again so soon after the fact. Inter, who matches Bodø/Glimt, may not want to travel north of the Arctic Circle to play on a plastic pitch in February. Whatever the reason, it would, in addition to making a TV programme, give a club a meaningful reward for finishing higher: imagine a representative from each team being given 60 seconds “on the clock” to choose their opponent. At the same time, this will naturally ensure that the bigger, better teams are kept aside for as long as possible.
You would then repeat it in the round of 16: Arsenal would get first choice, followed by Bayern Munich, and so on. While we’re at it, let the higher ranked team decide whether they want to play home or away first. We recognize that playing at home is an advantage, but perhaps some people may not want to do so, whether because of fixture congestion or style of play or some other reason. Hey, let them decide if they want to play Tuesday or Wednesday too.
These “game advantages” are things you can earn on the field and are actually meaningful. They make it less likely that at the end of the group stage, clubs will mail it or settle for a draw once they realize they are not going to make the top eight. –Gabriel Marcotti
Actually, the new format…is mostly fine, but let’s make the seeding more concrete
Honestly, I think the biggest change we can make is mindset. A huge, eight-match league stage offers minimal risk, yes, but it has produced some of the best stories of this season. With eight matches, Benfica and Bodø/Glimt were able to overcome some early setbacks and take their place in the competition. hell, Paphos And Union Saint-Gillois did much the same. As he found his groove, he performed better and the lack of threat really benefited us as viewers. Believing the league stage to be true Season The – albeit small – timing fluctuations and late surprises make this format extremely fun, even if we know no one will be eliminated in October.
However, if we insist on making changes, I have a few small changes.
First, for countries that offer four or more competitors, I would allow at least one match against a home opponent in the league stage. If we’re going to live in a world in which Premier League makes all the money and can afford most of the best players, so it also really benefits them from not having to play each other. It would certainly have been more difficult for Premier League teams to reach five of the top eight places in the table if, say, chelsea faced a trip to Arsenal, or had to play Manchester City with their bogey team (Tottenham Hotspur). And hey, if we end up with something extra el classico Or der classic Dropped into the November slate, who’s going to complain?
In the meantime, although there are a lot of Americanized touches being proposed, I would really like to go even further in one specific area. Forget getting rid of seeding – I’ll hard-seed everything!
There is potentially a huge difference between the seventh-place drawing Sporting CP (currently ranked 16th in Opta’s power rankings) and Manchester City (currently ranked second), or eighth this year, or 17th borussia dortmund (19th) and 18th place Olympiacos (45th). Last year, there was a huge difference between top-seeded Liverpool drawing 15th-placed PSG instead of 16th-placed Benfica, or 21st-placed Celtic instead of 22nd-placed Man City. There’s already quite a bit of randomness involved in how the final table looks – we don’t need its final explosion with a draw. Let the table dictate: In the round of 16, the first-place team plays the winner of No. 16 and No. 17, the No. 2 team plays the winner of No. 15 and No. 18, and so on.
These aren’t huge changes because honestly I don’t think much needs to change. We play miniseasons long enough for serious storyline changes and development, at the end of the league stage we have some wild match days, then we have a huge bracket that takes us through a few months of action. The expansion of the competition was almost entirely driven by the endless pursuit of more money, but as happens in this sport, the lust for cash has made football more fun for us to watch. –Bill Connelly
