I don't mind those changes. The group stages in the CL tend to be tedious affairs, aside from one or two groups of death. Seeing the best play each other is a good thing.
No need for the extra games , already a bloated European schedule, plus more and more international games including that senile French Twat wanting a WC every 2 years
The biannual World Cup is off. I don't see this as that big a deal. I think the changes potentially look good.
I don’t think the changes are necessarily bad but I really can’t be arsed to listen to managers whinge about no winter break after not having a word to say about the extra games here. I’m also curious as to how the Europa League fits in. Are the losers of the 9th-24th games going to drop in to the Europa?
All sounds very MLS. You could play the kids in every game, finish 24th and still qualify. Hilarious.
Definitely needed freshening up but some of the qualification criteria is a bit off. I believe two spots are for co-efficient and not league position. Don't agree with that. I've been thinking about the top 24 criteria. It's the top two thirds of the participants.....the points tally needed to qualify probably won't be that high. 30 points up for grabs....10 to get through? 3 wins and a draw out of ten matches? I guess an upside to this is teams may be more open and have a bit more a go?
36 team league but only 10 games played each, who plays who? the 5 home and 5 away games against the same side? Seems all just pointless money making shite to me.
I mean what if you get drawn 5 real good opponents like Bayern, PSG, etc and say Real Madrid get 5 x average sides like Salzberg, Besiktas, etc or are the fixtures going to be seeded? If so, whats the ****ing point in a 36 team league? A 36 team league with seeded fixtures, just more of an excuse for cutting out shock winners/big sides being knocked out sigh Yes @njmcfc1894 its absolute wank!!! Just leave the game alone ffs.
I'm all for footballing progress. So the breaking news disappoints. Football is far from the only commercially-global enterprise criminally-lacking in forward vision. The idea of the Europa Conference was right. The blueprint to back it up woefully absent. The Champions' League - IF it wants to avoid being anything other than an-almost meaningless cash cow - must consider streamlining the group stage process, instead of scrapping it altogether neither for a European League in all AND name, nor returning just to the 9-fixture knockout process of 40-odd years. One qualifying round for each state nation accompanying Champions' League holders and Europa League champions into the group phase. 30 group phase participants in 6 pools of 5. ONLY pool winners guaranteed Quarter-final berths, the 4 best 2nd-placed pool clubs playing off in a one game showdown for the last two berths, with the 2 losers (and the other 2 pool runners-up) dropping into the Europa League. The 6 3rd-placed pool teams filtered to the Europa Conference, leaving BOTH 4th AND 5th placed clubs eliminated altogether from season European competition. The group phase of 5 gameweek rounds, playing two home, two away and one rest gameweek. Abolishing BOTH dead rubbers AND the ridiculous margins for error.
I agree that the group stage has grown a bit stale, but not sure more group games but in the format of a big league is the answer. Just feels like steps towards turning the competition into a "genuine" league to rival out domestic games.
I'm not sure what the answer is. We can't go back to the good old days where it was champions only because 90% of the competition would be irrelevent. It's the nature of the game now. A seeded tournament merely presents that same issues that we have now in the sense that it'll only get interesting in the last 16. I like the idea of more 'big' games happening in the group stage. It reduces the monotomy of the group stages but 10 matches is too many. 8 may have worked if they tweaked the qualification process and used the dates in late August as the first two fixtures. Trying to find 4 dates between September and December seems difficult for any country with a secondary domestic competition.
Make it all knockout with no seeding. But I guess that makes less money and allows more shocks so will never happen.
