UEFA Champions & Europa League Football Thread ** spoilers ** [29th - 30th January 2025]

Kenai said:
Well, depends how picky you want to be, it looks like Uefa are calling the play off round part of the knockout stage :p
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The play off round is clearly part of the knockout phase as the looser of the tie will be knocked out?

The whole purpose of the revamp was to ensure more games bettween big teams and less opportunity for the little ones as it always is.
 
a1ex2001 said:
The play off round is clearly part of the knockout phase as the looser of the tie will be knocked out?

The whole purpose of the revamp was to ensure more games bettween big teams and less opportunity for the little ones as it always is.
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Using your own logic of the play offs = knockouts how often do teams like Celtic, Brugge, Feyenoord, Brest, Lillle, PSV and Sporting get through the groups?
 
a1ex2001 said:
The whole purpose of the revamp was to ensure more games bettween big teams and less opportunity for the little ones as it always is.
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Can you explain how the revamp gives smaller sides less opportunity?

Under the old format the smaller/pot 4 sides would have only played vs bigger sides than them and almost always were eliminated at the first round. There is now a completely even draw with every side playing (in theory) the same level of opposition. At a minimum the smallest sides are better off by having an extra 2 games - to a PL side this might not seem important but the head of the Polish FA commented on a podcast the other year how that is massive to smaller nations due to the disproportionate amount they receive from the CL compared to domestic money. While the play-off certainly acts as a safety net for the very biggest sides, it also provides the smaller sides with another opportunity to at least play a further 2 more games.

I know everybody likes to push this narrative that everything is for the benefit of the biggest sides but in this case, the changes have benefited everybody and it's hard to see any category of club that are worse off. You only have to look at the final table to see that. All the sides that have gone out would have gone out under the old format. Several sides that would have gone out have ended up in the play-offs and then you have sides like Villa, who would have likely faced a group of death under the old format, have not faced a harder path to qualification than say City.

Everybody gets more money. The biggest sides get a safety net from the play-offs, the smallest sides get more money and possibly a 2nd opportunity of an upset and the middle ranking sides aren't penalised by getting a harder draw than the biggest sides.
 
So City only win 3 out of 8 and make it through to the knockout rounds. Sorry playoffs. New super league working as intended.
 
Bigpig said:
So City only win 3 out of 8 and make it through to the knockout rounds. Sorry playoffs. New super league working as intended.
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I mean, the drama was entirely because Man City and PSG endeavoured to be absolutely awful. Normally the league stage of the CL will be dull as ditch water because as you say, 3 wins out of 8 will likely have you in the playoffs at least.
 
Previously you had teams progress to 'proper' last 16 knockouts with 2 wins in 6 and half the teams had already qualified with 2 games to spare leaving loads of zero-jeopardy games in the last week or two of group fixtures quite often. Last year 6 teams had already qualified for the last 16 after 4 out of 6 group games.

This format, I think only Liverpool and Barcelona had qualified after Week 7 of 8, so plenty of teams still had something of value to play for and the remaining 6 automatic last 16 places were very much up for grabs going into the final week.
 
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