EXPLAINED: How the new look Champions League format works

[Music] hello and welcome back to the CL blue podcast something very different for us today at the bar yeah something yeah drinks please today's video is US explaining the new Champions League format John so for those that listen to the podcast on Spotify or apple podcasts I did an audio version of this I don't know three months ago or something where I basically had a script that I wrote of the rules and stuff and I could read it properly and do several takes get all the information out clearly can't do that for YouTube cuz we can't just sit here and read things so we've opted to go for a more visual look at things we've got here 36 magnetic counters that will one day end up on a tactics board or something and we can do you know this is Em's formation and whatever else but for now there's 36 magnets here John why are there 36 because there's 36 teams in the Champions League next season ding correct that is true 36 uh clubs will be in the new Champions League format next year so that'll be four pots with nine teams in each one so the current format for those that obviously maybe not up to speed with the Premier League do you want to just explain what it would have been if not for this year yes so four clubs in the groups you would play everyone home and away so that's six games V will be playing eight though so two more matches one more home one more away um which means more Revenue so yeah and more memories as well I think that's nice yeah that is actually true we guaranteed eight matches so yeah and you guaranteed to play different CED teams as well which we'll we'll talk about in a sec I like that so for now you can ignore the colors I tried to get as close to Cent blue as I could and it it was red and blue which not great um so the colors mean absolutely nothing at this point but you've got pot one pot two pot three and pot four nine teams in each one so Aston Villa will be in pot four so Aston Villa will play two teams from pot four the pot that they're in so similar level clubs in terms of European coefficient two teams from pot three two teams from pot two and two teams and the big boys pop one which are the big boys I see Man City your Bayern Munich I pluralization of football clubs that's your man city your Bayern Munich Liverpool Etc so this is Villa this blue counter is Villa I'm going to leave them at the back we're going to take two from pot four we'll keep it as the Reds to keep it uh simple two clubs from pot three two from pot two and two from pot one Villa will play these eight teams in the Champions League next year one at home one away one at home one away one at home one away one at home one away yeah so you play Four games at home four away one of each variation from each part it won't be that you play these two away and these two at home and these two it's it's one of each a random order I believe the dra I also like as well you're guaranteed to play two of the big boys one of them at home and one of them away so whoever you get in that partt is going to be a great away trip there's some bloody good teams in pot two as well same thing with players you could go to Atletico Madrid or somebody in pot two some great teams throughout the competition to be fair as you were doing the prep for this you were like some good teams this compe uh which what we won exactly yeah so we kind of stepped up a level so that's the that's the basic premise these are all the clubs here's Aston Villa you play two from each One MH visually for those that are watching on YouTube we've rearranged our uh tokens here our clubs into a league format now ideally this needs to be one long line the table's not big enough so I'll explain what we've got in a second I feel a bit like Gordon Ramsey here now and he's like calling his camera like pan up look at this so Oscar if you just come in a little bit closer and get a shot of what we got and I will explain what's going on these eight tokens at the top are the top eight that finish in the in the league system the red tokens here are clubs 9th down to 24th mhm and these teams here are 25th to 36th they are out of Europe in this last section if you finish 25th or worse you don't go to the Europa League anymore John there's no dropping down a competition once you're out of the Champions League you're out the top eight here go directly to the round of they don't have to bother with anything else they can go as well right so that's probably your man city Bayern Munich the teams that you would expect to win a lot of games villa villa obviously top eight straight through to the Knockouts and from The Knockouts by the way that is when you're in the usual format of quarterfinals semi-finals you know everyone knows about that it's these clubs here John that intrigue me okay because I think I think this is where Villa will end up in yeah I think so as well so the top eight I think will be the best eight teams in the competition generally speaking probably most of pop one yeah maybe the odd outlier here and there if everyone is playing eight games from a points perspective you can get 24 points maximum in this format so you're probably going to need I don't know High teams to early 20s to be in that top eight we don't know for sure but it'll be next year once the League's done you'll be able to know how many games you need to win yeah say if you won five games out of eight is that enough to get in the top eight 15 points possibly but I I think it probably will be higher than that cuz you would expect most of teams in pot one to be able to beat most of the rest in this section here there's 16 teams so once the top eight go straight through the bottom eight and the top eight play theoretically the best team plays the worst or the best performing plays the yeah and so on and so like the championship playoffs yeah exactly so the higher you finish in the league the lower team you face the worst team you'll face in the in this Playoff round Villa finish if we let's say it if finish top of this little group here they'll play the worst the team who were one place um yeah yeah exactly so vill were to finish n so there's an advantage of if Villa on on the final game if they have already wrapped up um qualification for the playoff phase it's still in their interest to to finish as high as possible yeah yeah exactly yeah good point the reverse are of that is if they just about scrape over and finish 25th which still be progress the likelihood is this is still a very good team finishes nth well obviously a master points nine teams in pot one right yeah could still be a the top nine teams will be you would have thought one so I expect those teams to be eight teams from pot eight plus by lus yeah yeah so these playoff games they're two-legged as well home and away so that's another little kind of mini mini thing to this uh scenario that if you're not in the bottom half and you're out the competition and forget about it this is kind of for me this is the place for vill to own for we' love to get straight through to the The Knockout phases but I think that is a a very very difficult task that would be a difficult task in the conference League to be honest based off what we had this year so I think this is where we're aiming at you've got to at least get to this for me to to feel like some kind of success I don't want to be in it just for the minimum amount of games I want to at least get to this you want a qualification game yeah you've got eight games minimum but I want to get it to at least 10 a two-legged Affair against somebody here as we said from that stage on once you get past this Playoff round if you were to win it you then go into the last 16 eight teams going to uh The Knockouts and eight teams pack their bags and go home that's the format John basically there's no more explanation need it cuz once you get to this stage it's last 16 quarterfinal semi-final two-legged Affair everyone knows how that works already do you want to you want some dates for the diary out some dates so match day one our first ever Champions League foray is going to be played on the 17th to 19th of September match day two first and second match of October match day 3 22nd and 23rd of October match day four 5ifth and 6th of November match day five 26th and 27th of November my birthday 26th Champions League nights on my birthday potentially uh Match Day 6 10th and 11th of December match day 7 21 and 22 of January and match day eight the last game possibly for Villa but hopefully not 29th of January 2025 it's interesting the January games because obviously the windows open and different bits and also if you as we've spoken about before the kind of balance between Champions League football and Premier League if it it were to go out in the first phase your European c campaign is finished by the 1 of February yeah if you look at Newcastle everyone thought they were shot after a certain point in the campaign and then all of a sudden they've finished a few points behind Tottenham like if Villa are lagging at the start of the season it's okay like they they they have a strong second second half of the season anyway cuz I don't think they'll go too far in the Champions League which might end in don't know late February March time I mean you're about to tell me when the the next round of dates The Knockout Playoff round will be the 11th and 12th and 18th and 19th of February so again middle of February you're done with your potentially round of 16 is early March uh the quarterfinals are early April semi-finals are the end of April and the beginning of May and the final book it for your diary 31st of May 2025 at the alians arena yeah we're all going to Munich yeah nice nice venue the draw for the entire league phase the 36 teams and who plays who from pot two three four and one uh is the 29th of August that's a computerized thing isn't it it's like an automated it's not balls in a hat is it yeah I don't know if it's been officially confirmed but you come out and said that it's going to take them hours to do cuz it's so complex and there's so much stuff going on so um should be computerized but we're going to satisfy your needs uh knockout round playoffs of the 31st of January 2025 that's the draw for those games um and then the round of 16 quarterfinal and the semi-final are all mapped out on the 21st of February yeah John you've prepared for us a fake Champions League draw now humor Us on this a little bit this is a little bit to just show the format kind of but also just to have a look at some of the teams that are either confirmed to be in the competition or projected to be in the competition here's something John made earlier this is our Champions League uh draw box that we have here uh you want a little closeup of that there you go got it we didn't buy the box or anything by the way we didn't no no the box is already here the paper's already here we spent no expense at all um So currently in the Box here we have the Sid that are in pot eight okay Villa's not pot sorry the nine clubs that are in pot four Villa's not in there is it no okay obviously so we're going to pick out now between us eight potential opponents that Villa could face just for fun so two opponents we're going to start with the worst pop and build a suspense exactly yeah I'm going to draw the home teams you're going to draw the away team oh nice okay we're now going to go through the permutations and stipulations if you'd like to watch this short video we'll back you in an hour so this is apparently going to take you away for hours and hours but it's going to take us 5 minutes so we're going to Rattle through this although we are only doing uh one draw I suppose aren't we can't look I'm not looking all right don't Fold It Up anyone you need to look at me either okay right ready our first team is who is it as Monaco oh you as Monaco at Villa Park okay nice fancy that's a change of scene for that do you like to draw the away team John yeah I almost called you Jonathan then you're not called Jonathan are [Music] you oh here we go this real suspense in the room now oh galatas oh away yeah that could have been a conference League match up I wouldn't want to go there well I would but out the teams that are in there I mean already that shows the level of I mean they both confirmed I mean we've taken the c teams here from um a projected form so these may not definitely be in there most of them will be highly likely highly likely but it shows the level of the teams doesn't it the pot four the worst pot that Villa can be playing against Monaco and galatas is no no they're not okay right should we continue yeah yeah yeah definitely I'm going to just uh I'll just transition it these are the teams that are in pop three V again play two from this home and away gonna give him a bit of a shuffle around I'm not looking John I'm not looking I swear first one is at home at home Sporting Lisbon ooh that's decent you like that away would you yeah I wanted that away you like a trip to Portugal and do want to have yourself a fumble in the Box a lot of change at sportting potentially without and kakas yeah but this is obviously fake so it doesn't matter obviously this isn't real he we got away from home young boys boys nice really boring I'm not sure young boys a good trip that feels like a proper Champions League game to me though they feel like they always think they're playing astr tur dodgy yeah okay I don't know how I feel about that don't anything about them so winable game though I'm not going to lie them being in pop three is yeah it's just why the coefficient Works part two now we are getting into Big Boy territory not young boy territory Big Boy territory good yeah so this uh I don't know when we play the home games and away games I presume it's random yeah okay so in po two Villa will play they're not going to see this on camera Anyway by the way s oh no it's by lusen some hard hard home games there Monaco sporting in L could that have gone any worse I cuz I want the winable G you what I don't think it could have gone much worse actually I think our best chances of getting any points they're going to be at Villa Park and that's three tough games for us Yeah by by a never losing is that their new name I saw on the weekend true for now they might um lose the Europa League final I reckon that'll be their first defeat next season B in the champ League yeah every chance let's see p out lever man so away from home pot two Vace leveren and Atletico oh jeez the W metropolitana I mean there's no such thing as a group of death anymore cuz it's not a group but this is bloody difficult this is tough let's have pop one attenion in this off this is palpable let me tell you yeah okay so pop one our final home game oh hold on it was stuck to the thing okay our final game in pop one our final home game one that's folded up nice and neatly is oh no oh no what is it it's Real Madrid oh God Real Madrid at V park though I mean yeah to be fair we've pop one I'm happy I want to play Madrid actually they're all difficult AR they I'd rather play them away yeah but par parkol yeah gets 17th ands and here we areass reaction oh no got final [Music] one this won't be as exciting watching the real draw will it this is PE this will be don't what they're doing for the draw do we so taking hours easy PSG away oo okay no mbappe no mbappe mbapp phart Christ okay so let's get this out of the way so Aston Villa will play in the Champions League next season as Monaco and Galatasaray Monaco at home Galatasaray away from pot four Sporting Lisbon at home and young boys away from pot three that's decent I think pop three B lusan at home and Atletico Madrid away from home tasty that's probably the most two difficult teams from from pop two all these four from part two and part one is tough and Real Madrid at home to end the campaign and then p away very very difficult Villa you know we're talking about getting into that Playoff round the lowest place to get in again we got no idea for points like what you need six points to win at least 25th you're going have to win three games aren't you three games maybe yeah I think if you're R for double figures you got a a very good chance of I think double fig should do it because so where's our double figures coming from with these well you need to win at least one of your pop four games and then if not both and then one at least so at least one of your pot three matches beat these three Gala Monaco and young boys nine points that could be enough galatas is tough I don't know of course it is but look at these names I know sporting at home I think you need to win your pot three and four home games I that's what we've worked out you need to win your two easiest home games obviously Nick a couple of draws some can you get a point at home in your other two matches but you going have to win away that's how kind a fake draw then we're not going to progress to who they're playing in The Knockouts and stuff that really would take ages but the kind of overall arching message here is that yeah round difficult lus obviously this isn't real this is Champions League this is the Champions League like the fact that we're even in this competition and we're talking about these kind of names rather than rotheram and Huddersfield from four or five years ago like this is a new thing to be in and it's absolutely something to be excited about and something to look forward to and buzzing for I can't wait exactly you want to play the big teams and this is only the start of hopefully where we're going to be going so it's you know it seems a bit daunting to play some of those teams we P up but bring it on at the same time exactly yeah that's it for one then a nice little explainer hopefully for the Champions League format hopefully people have enjoyed kind of getting up to speed I I'm sure people have been Googling things anyway but it's nice for us to kind of talk through it and now little fake draw as well John's little artwork that he's prepared his little his box his champions league on the box um thank you very much for watching this one or listening to it it's been strange to Stand Here With You John but I've enjoyed it very much um thank you to Oscar for helping us film some of the close-up shots on this one as well uh some big names to be excited about I've been Gary eville He's Jeremy carer thank you for watching I'll see you next time I'm not doing this just standing like we a SC pad and tactics and stuff it's weird get off the pitch [Music]