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Please read our Please read ourUEFA introduced a new Champions League format for this season, as no doubt all of you are aware.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the round of 16, while the teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged knock-out phase play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition. Teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated, with no access to the UEFA Europa League.
From the round of 16 onwards, the competition will continue to follow its existing format of knockout rounds leading to the final staged at a neutral venue selected by UEFA. Off the top of your head, have a quick guess just how many matches this will now take, to go from 36 to the final 16? This was all about ensuring so many matches were played so that more money could be generated, as opposed to simple home and away knockout rounds all the way through. Then with seeding, the idea to increasingly make it easier for the same small group of clubs to reach the later stages year on year. I am baffled as to why anybody then is surprised when you have the same teams reaching the later stages season after season.
Just look at the Carabao Cup this season. Ironically, due to the impact of all these extra European matches due to the Swiss League format, it was declared that in one round, all of the clubs participating in the Champions League and Europa League, had to be kept apart from each other. So in that round those six were drawn out first and separately, with then the rest drawn out after wards, including the half dozen to face those CL and Europa League six.
As you can see, the bottom ten teams are either mathematically, or realistically, already knocked out with two games each to play. However, in reality, this was the case for them even with four matches still to play of the eight. Real Madrid, very likely they would also have been out now in the six matches group format, they have nine points and last season five of the eight groups the second team had ten points or more.
When the initial draw was made and each of the 36 clubs found out who they would be playing in each of their eight matches, we were all supposed to get excited by who they’d been drawn against. Why? Simply loads more matches and even less chance of any shocks, surprise eliminations.
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