Muddled Champions League format lessens the excitement levels
A complicated group stage has wrapped up with just a third of the clubs sent home after the first round
THE group stage of European club football’s two largest tournaments – the Champions League and the Europa League – wrapped up this week, and I am not entirely sure I like, or agree, with this season’s new format.
To recap, for each tournament a total of 36 teams – including the big boys like Liverpool, Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as lesser-followed ones such as Slovakian side Slovan Bratislava – from all over the continent were all placed in one giant league.
Every club played a total of eight games (two more than previous years) and that is probably the only thing that was straightforward about this first stage. The top eight teams automatically qualified for the next round and can relax until their next match comes around in March.
Meanwhile, those that ended in ninth to 24th position will have to endure a two-legged playoff in February to book a place in the last 16. The clubs that finished 25th or lower have been eliminated altogether.
Utter chaos
The final round of matches for the two competitions turned out to be extremely messy and hard to follow, especially for the neutrals. Uefa – European football’s governing body – ordered all the group games in the final round to kickoff simultaneously, in order to prevent any team from gaining an advantage over others by knowing the scores of the earlier fixtures and adjusting their lineups or tactics later on. In doing so, clubs and their managers would not be able to work out the result that they need to make it to the next round, thereby ensuring a more level playing field.
This sounded quite logical on paper, but what happened was utter chaos, as an unprecedented 18 Champions League kicked off on Thursday at the same time (4 am, Singapore time). Twenty-four hours later, the same arrangement was carried out in the Europa League as 18 matches were played simultaneously.
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It was quite a chore to follow all the results on TV. No matter which game you decided to tune into, the commentator would end up giving updates from many of the other matches going on elsewhere, and describing the different permutations if a particular team won, lost or drew. The broadcasters also showed the live league table and it was quite dizzying to see the teams move up and down the standings after they scored or conceded a goal.
In the end, after what seemed like an endless rollercoaster ride, it was Liverpool that topped the Champions League table (after losing their last match to PSV Eindhoven, no less), while the likes of Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Juventus will need to get through the playoffs next month.
Crowded fixture list
I definitely miss the format of the previous seasons of the Champions League. In the past, 32 teams would be placed in groups of four, and they would play one another on a home-and-away basis for a total of six matches. At the end of it all, the top two clubs would qualify for the knockout stage – plain and simple.
This season, what I did not like about the new arrangement was that each team was randomly given eight opponents in the group stage, and they did not get to play each of them at home and away. There were some instances where a couple of teams enjoyed home advantage against some of the more established opponents, depending on the luck of the draw.
The new system added two extra group games to an already crowded fixture list for clubs that have long complained of injuries and fatigue for their players. Of course, it means more games for the fans and more money for Uefa and the broadcasters, but that is beside the point.
The silliness of having one massive league table instead of smaller groups meant that we saw the unusual sight of former Champions League winners such as Manchester City or PSG desperately trying to win their final group game in order to claw their way into the ninth-to-24th bracket.
The group stage of the Champions League and the Europa League used to be pretty exciting affairs, but the fact that a club could end up in a lowly 24th place and still reach the playoffs meant that many teams only started to take things a bit more seriously towards the end.
A blockbuster match between, say Real Madrid and Juventus, should mean much more than just determining whether these two giants of the sport finish in 14th spot. Perhaps it is asking too much for Uefa to overhaul the format again anytime soon, but surely European football’s most prestigious competition deserves better than this.
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