The New Champions League Format • All You Need To Know (2024)

Intro/Hook it's bigger it's better and it is the Champions League in a way you've never seen before the Champions League will be wearing a new look from the 2024 2025 season and it's pretty exciting this competition which is one of the highest levels of competition in Continental Club football is evolving and the details will blow your mind this Why the Change wouldn't be the first time that the champions league would have had a rule change but we'll get to this later on however this current change came at a time many would describe as one of the most controversial periods of Club football history and well we aren't out of that period yet around the time that there was a heist that almost toppled UEFA in April 2021 the organization announced the creation of a new competition system plans format access list and calendar for the new system were eventually approved on May 10th 2022 UF for president Alexander cheffin announced that the new system was passed unanimously by the organization's executive committee and that qualification would be based on sport Merit the idea is to make the Champions League more competitive and also more balanced for the clubs so there is the possibility that teams will now play opponents who are around the same level as them during the league phase of the competition how will this be possible keep watching the video to find out another reason for the change is that it will deliver more entertainment to the fans as there would be more matchups between the top teams these top teams will be able to test themselves as they will will go head-to-head more often and earlier in the competition in the new system unlike the previous system which sometimes only gets exciting around the round of 16 or even the quarterfinals the fans will also have more games to watch and now every result counts the new system being introduced will introduce more drama and more possibilities for upsets right up to and including the very last match day now winning or losing the last games of The League phase of the system could be the difference between an automatic qualification for the round of 16 going to the playoffs to qualify for the round of 16 or a complete elimination from the competition see what I mean by more entertainment for the fans there is also one more reason that isn't talked about much the new format which brings in more games will now help clubs to make even more money some may call it greed but some may call it good business what do you think so what is the new format and New Format: How Will it Work, League Phase how will it work first let's talk numbers the new system will see the maximum number of games played by a team to 17 if they are able to reach the final in the previous system the number of Maximum games was 13 with that increase the new total number of games in the new system will go from 125 to 189 matches before we had 32 teams competing in the group stages where a team played a total of six games three home and three away fixures against the other three teams they shared a group with so there is a bit of monotony involved fans and experts could easily predict the teams that would make it out of a group that old system could also put a really strong team in a group where their opponents aren't nearly as strong and the strong team is more or less guaranteed a spot in the next round now what the competition offers is a single League system of 36 teams where a team will play eight matches against eight different teams with four matches being played away and the other four at home so how do teams know who they will be matched up against this is where the pots come in no not that kind of pot so to determine who will play against each other the teams will be ranked in four seeding pots the first pot will have the winner of the Champions League among other strong teams in this case Real Madrid will be in the first pot now each team will play two teams from each pot to arrive at the eight teams they will play against so it is one game against a team from each pot at home and one away to make it clearer Real Madrid will play against two teams in pot a one match in that pot a will be at the burner B and the other will be away this would be the same for pot B and so on so Madrid would be playing against the tough teams in pot a the next tough ones in pot B and so on now that we are clear on how the matchups in the league phase will be how will teams qualify for the round of 16 like the previous group The Round of 16 table three points will be awarded for a win and one for a draw after the teams play their eight matches the top eight teams will qualify automatically for the last 16 then those who finished in the 9th to 24th Place will go to a two-legged knockout playoff to determine the next eight that will qualify for the last 16 from 25 to 36 it will be a complete elimination from Europe and no team will be dropping down to the Europa League as in the previous format in the new Playoff round there wouldn't be draws to determine who would play against who it is going to be the highest placed team matching up against the lowest placed so the ninth will play the 24th 10th will play 23rd and so on until the matchups are complete those who lose in this round will also be eliminated and won't be dropping to the Europa League after qualifying for the last 16 there still won't be any draws the top two teams will not be playing against each other until the final the same goes for the remaining teams in the top eight in the round of 16 the top eight will be playing against the winners of the Playoff round but not based on the results of the playoffs but on their standings in the table so let's assume that teams 9 to 16 won the playoffs the 16th team will play the first team on the table the 15th will play the second and so on with this the other strong teams will only meet against each other in the semifinals basically what I am trying to say here is for the quarterfinal the first team will be playing the eighth then afterwards we'll be playing against either the fifth or fourth team this will keep the matchups exciting and engaging up to the final speaking of Schedule finals it could take longer for the teams to reach the final the usual schedule of competition has slightly changed while teams will play Champions League between Tuesdays and Wednesdays the difference now is that the league phase will now end at the end of January where teams will play twice instead of during December however if there are no other European competitions such as the Champions League exclusive weeks there will be matches on Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays playing three times a week The 4 new teams when possible is unavoidable as there are now 36 teams and 189 games to be played but where will the extra four teams come from two of those teams will come from coefficient places or european performance spots this means that a league whose teams perform best in European competition will have an extra spot in the last European competitions Italy and Germany had the best Collective team performances and it earned them an extra spot each this brings us to 34 teams with two more spots to be filled out of those two a team will qualify for finishing third in the fifth ranked Association in uefa's Access list which is currently France the last will come from a league where the Champions have to go through a qualifying process which will consist of four qualifying rounds the new format is History of Changes not bizarre if you look at the history of the competition what we now know is the Champions League began as the European Champion clubs cup during the 1955 56 as an invite only tournament which included only six teams in 1967 the competition grew to 32 teams and its name changed to the European Cup during this time the competition's format changed to feature four two-legged rounds before a single match final this format lasted for over 20 years in 1992 the champions league as we know it began with a group stage and the last 16 entering a knockout phase UEFA flirted with a change by introducing two group stages but returned to the single group stage format for the 2003 2004 tournament so the new format looks slightly more complicated but as you can see it really isn't and there are reasons to be excited as fans of the game however players and coaches may not share the same enthusiasm as it means more games this still doesn't mean that the new format is bad it could even be argued that it could cause an evolution in not only coaching but in how players from theems are used coaches will now have to fully use their squad rather than focus on using the same set of players despite Squad depth I do understand that not all squads have depth and this is where the academy comes in with this kind of format teams can now rely more on their Academy players and even Fast Track their development there are talents who should have gone full professional who are still inms because of the unwillingness of the first team's coach to explore their options so teams have to adapt to the new format as it doesn't look like UEFA will be changing things soon especially not with the threat of the European Super League hanging over their heads UEFA has also used the tournament to take care of certain concerns such as lack of excitement in the Champions League and also promised continued financial support for European football Outro do you think the format will be a success let us know what you think in the comments don't forget to like this video And subscribe to this channel for more exciting football content