The New Format for the Champions League
The UEFA Champions League is scheduled to kick off from the 17th of September onwards for the 2024/25 season. But Europe’s Premier Club competition will have a brand new look this season. The entire format for the Champions League has changed and now there will be a total of 36 teams competing for the ultimate prize instead of the earlier 32 teams.
Moreover, each team will play 8 group stage matches and a league table among the 36 teams would be formed from which the top 8 at the end of the group stage matches will directly qualify for the round of 16. Teams from 9th to 24th position on the league table will face off in a two-legged tie from which the 8 winning teams will qualify for the Round of 16. After which the format is pretty much the same as all the years before: Ro16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, all two-legged affairs, and then the one-off UCL Final.
Pros of the New Champions League Format
1. More and More Football!
As a Football fan specifically, or from an economic perspective, as a football consumer, the new format is a huge plus. All it has basically provided us fans in simple words is more & more of the beautiful sport. There will be an additional 58 games in the group stage alone! Earlier the number of group stage matches used to be 96, now there will be a total of 154 league stage matches played!
2. Bigger and Better UCL Nights!
Bring out the Popcorn people! Because if there’s one thing that this new-look Champions League promises us, then it’s big matches more and more often. Here’s a list of the interesting and “worth staying up for” matchups in just the league stage of the Champions League this season
| City vs Inter | City vs PSG | City vs Juventus | Barca vs Bayern |
| Barca vs Dortmund | Barca vs Benfica | Barca vs Atalanta | Madrid vs Dortmund |
| Madrid vs Liverpool | Madrid vs Milan | Madrid vs Atalanta | Liverpool vs Leverkusen |
| Liverpool vs Milan | Bayern vs PSG | Bayern vs Benfica | Bayern vs Villa |
| Inter vs Arsenal | Inter vs Leverkusen | Arsenal vs PSG | Arsenal vs Atalanta |
| Milan vs Leverkusen | Juventus vs Villa | Atletico vs Leverkusen | Atletico vs PSG |
3. The new format encourages Attacking Football
Now with the new UCL format having a League stage rather than a group stage per se, teams will try their level best to end up amongst the top 8 teams on the table. With 36 teams having the same goal, finishing in the top 8 won’t be so easy and we might see a lot of competition for the 4-8 spots on the table. With the competition being so neck-and-neck, it might all boil down to the Goal Difference between teams. Knowing and keeping this in mind, clubs will be urged to play a more attacking brand of football than they normally do in order to score as many goals as possible.
4. Teams won’t settle for draws anymore
With the new format, each match will be competitive up until the 90th minute. That’s because top teams or in fact any team won’t settle for anything less than a win and 3 points to keep their spot in the top half of the table or improve upon their standing. This reduces the possibility of having inconsequential matches in the group stage where one or both the teams would happily settle for a draw.
Cons of the new Champions League format
1. Automated or Rigged?
Well, there are always questions asked about the sincerity of the UEFA Champions League draws season after season. With the new automated system in place where an AI at random chooses and pairs up teams, people finally thought that those days of calling it rigged were gone. But nope. If anything a few draws seemed even more suspicious. Like the Bayern vs Barcelona draw which seems to be a fixed draw year after year now. Same with the Real Madrid vs Liverpool draw. Moreover, once again, Manchester City got a very easy draw in the group(League) stage. Furthermore, as it was all programmed by AI human eyes did not get a chance to see the workings behind the seeding of teams like they used to before.
2. Is “more better”? Or is it just “more Taxing
With the new and improved format, each team will have to play more and more games in the Champions League. Yes, fans would really love this. But would all football clubs love it too? Definitely not. More games just means less time between games for recovery increasing the risk of injuries. At the end of the day, they are humans like the rest of us.
3. The most Complicated Format ever
Just look at the following image.
The first thing that comes to mind is “Complicated and Messy”. The Earlier format was so simple to understand and wrap your head around. But this one is too difficult to understand. Who plays who, how and when?
4. UEFA Champions League has become UEFA’s Super League
It’s no secret that UEFA hate the Super League. It is everything they do not want. At least at face value. The new format is much more like what the Super League was once promised to be like! More games, more advertising and broadcasting deals. More money in the pockets of UEFA. So basically while standing against Super League all this time UEFA basically made their own pockets full by fooling the public and are now going to proceed with a format eerily similar to that of the Super League. Well well well!
Conclusion
The previous format of the UEFA Champions League was something tested by time, which had kept the fans glued for decades and produced some of the greatest moments the footballing world had ever seen. It was simple, exciting, and quite fair comparatively, and that is why people in large numbers loved the competition worldwide. And while the new format definitely provides more games, possibly more entertainment, and larger revenue prospects, on the other side it presents a few drawbacks: it is overcomplicated and carries with itself a certain risk of not being as fair. Whether that adds to the magic of the Champions League or dilutes it, remains to be seen. We, the fans, can only hope these changes bring even more breathtaking football spectacles and the essence of the Champions League remains intact. Only time will tell if this tampering was worth it.
