The start of the 2024-25 season in Europe will bring a new change of route in European soccer, more specifically in the UEFA Champions League, the most important club tournament in world soccer.
UEFA has implemented a new format for its most important competition, which will increase both the number of participants and the number of matches each team will play in the first phase.
The governing body of European soccer decided to change, after an extensive analysis, the format of the tournament that had been maintained since 2004 until the previous campaign, where the 32 participants were divided into eight groups of four members. The first change in the format has to do with the number of participating teams, as there will now be 36 teams in the initial phase.
The next change, which may prove to be the most important, is the disappearance of the group stage. This phase will now be replaced by a group of eight matches, known as the Swiss format, which will be drawn by lot prior to the start of the tournament. Each team will face eight different opponents in this stage, four at home and four away. The names of the teams to face will be drawn from four pots, two for each of them, which will ensure that teams of the same level will face each other from the initial stage of the tournament.
The end of the group stage will also bring a change in the way of qualifying for the second round, since starting this year a system similar to that of the local leagues will be implemented, where all teams are part of the same classification. Under this system, the eight teams with the best record in the first eight games will qualify directly for the Round of 16, while those finishing in positions 9 to 24 will play a round-robin play-off to determine the eight clubs that will complete the final phase. Meanwhile, clubs that finish between 25th and 36th place in the league format will be eliminated from the tournament, with no possibility of advancing to another tournament, as was the case in the previous format.
With this format change, UEFA expects that the competition will be more equitable and that teams from other latitudes will have more options to advance to the next round. UEFA will maintain this format until the 2026-27 edition, when this format could be confirmed or undergo some other adjustment.
🌟 New Champions League format!
☑️ The first day will be played on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
☑️ 18 matches will be played simultaneously on the last day.
☑️ Each team will play 8 matches in the 'groups' 4 at home. 4 away.
☑️ 36 qualified teams (four... pic.twitter.com/mDKBe0ISmn
- Marc Perez (@MarcPerez1_) May 23, 2024
