The *New* Champions League Format for Dummies

So at this point, you have likely seen Zlatan and Buffon give impressive performances in UEFA’s “The dawn of a new era” video. You have watched Cristiano Ronaldo get impatient with the smashing of a button that makes an algorithm select the eight opponents for your club that magically appear on your screen. You paused the stream to get a closer look. You looked at Club Brugge in the list and thought “hey, that’s familiar.” Maybe you smiled or maybe you sighed and thought “Of course, it’s City. Cheaters, getting easier draws again.” The stream ended, you went to Twitter (It will always be Twitter for me, X remains as unknown to me as it was in my math textbooks) and scrolled through your feed when you saw a tweet saying “Does anyone understand this new UCL format?”. And this is the first time you actually thought about this new format and found your understanding lacking. Since then, you have vigorously consumed random YouTube videos and Twitter long threads to understand it but it still feels like a puzzle. Luckily for you, if you made it this far in this article, you have two options: continue reading this article to try to understand it.. or wait for a friend to half explain it to you as you try to understand why your team needs to win.. against Girona.. so that they don’t end up in the 9th place in the table. And there’s now a league table of 36 teams. In short, you’re best bet is to read this!

We will do our best to answer the below questions to understand the new format that UEFA has thrown at us:

Why is your club put in a particular pot?

Three Words : UEFA Club Coefficient. This is calculated based on your club’s performance in European competitions over the past five-year period. Only condition to this is: Your club should qualify to the competition through your respective league positions. Consider this: had Roma qualified to the Champions League, they would have been put in Pot 1 instead of RB Leipzig. Same goes for Chelsea and Manchester United; their non-qualification has led to Barcelona being promoted into Pot 1. Some would rightfully question if there is any benefit to being in Pot 1? No. Apart from the fact that you are drawn first, after which you can close the stream. Then why do we have these pots? It indicates “seeding” of a club. Remember this word. We will get to this later.

What’s the logic behind choosing the opponents for your club?

This is a bit complex. Random selection of two opponents from each pot with constraints that the opponent should not belong to the same league as your club and there shouldn’t be more than two opponents from the same league.

Make sense? 

If so, let’s move on to the next question. Do you know why we divided these teams into pots? Allow us to explain further.

The teams are divided into different pots based on their strength indicated by the aforementioned UEFA Club Coefficient. The idea is that once the teams are divided in pots based on this coefficient, Pot 1 will have the strongest teams of similar level and Pot 4 will have the weakest teams of similar level. This is called “seeding”. Now that we have defined the relative strength of all the participating teams, we can now make your strong team play teams of varied strengths - from strongest to the weakest. This is a better way to get more interesting and closely contested games instead of having a very strong team play all weaker teams in a randomly selected group stage. Or have a weak team play all strong teams in a group and be virtually eliminated even before kicking the ball. This is the idea behind the concept “The Swiss Model”. 

Why do we have a league table?

The idea behind a league table is to make the initial phase of the competition more important than earlier. Your club’s position in the table determines the path your team takes to the finals. Initially, your club competed against three other clubs for the top 2 spots in the group. Now teams have to compete with 36 teams for the top 8 spots. This can lead to interesting matches even in the last few matches of the league phase, where an extra goal or a draw can be the difference between top 8 or being stranded between the 9th and 24th spots. In theory, big clubs will try to avoid getting out of the top 8 because they will have to play a two-legged knockout play-off to qualify for the round of 16. Two extra games in such a calendar could be a killer. 25-36 will be eliminated directly out of all the European competitions of the season.

“Who cares about those losers. My team is strong, we will finish in the top 8. That’s enough, right?” 

“Yeah, but the higher you are, the easier your path to the finals.”

“You mean no more Real Madrid in my path?”

“Yes, possibly.”

“Wow, Tell me more!”

Will we have another draw for Round of 16?

Yes but it would be different this time around. This draw will evidently provide the path to the finals for a team. The top 8 are called seeded teams and the bottom 8 that have come from the knockout play-offs are unseeded. Consider the below easily understood diagram:

Hypothetically, let’s say your club has finished 1st or 2nd in the league phase. You can draw either 15, 16, 17 or 18 position clubs in the round of 16. Also, as your club is a seeded club, they earn home advantage in the second leg. Now, your club’s path to finals is set here. You see, your club’s path gets relatively easier if they finish higher up in the league phase.

There could be a draw for Quarters and later phases - but only to decide who plays home games in the first leg. The opponents are already decided after the R16 draw.

How many games does your team have to play to win the UCL this year?

Minimum 15, maximum 17 games (2 games in the knockout phase). This is two or in the worst case scenario four more than the earlier format.

Why has UEFA done this?

Well, money. But we all know that. A more nuanced answer would be that this change makes the competition more interesting and more strongly contested than earlier. It gives stronger teams more opportunities to progress while also giving weaker teams more opportunities to play teams closer to their level. It also gives those teams the opportunity to progress further in the competition leading to higher revenues for them. As fans, we will be able to watch strong teams compete against each other more frequently while also avoiding dead rubbers as each position in the league phase matters.

Will it kill the Cinderella Stories? No, it will be about as frequent as it has always been.

But, it is about Money, right? Yes, of course it is. As football fans, all we can wish for is that the quality and the integrity of the sport is never compromised. This new format, though looks daunting, is, in my humble opinion, a step in the right direction that not only makes the competition more exciting but also more balanced. 

Written by: Ayush Kumar

Edited by: SHEIKH

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