We’re halfway through year two of the revamped UEFA Champions League, and we’ve already seen the dramatic impact of 2024’s shift to a 36-team, Swiss-style league stage unlike anything we’ve seen in Europe before.
For example, the final round of this year’s league stage saw Benfica goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin produce a memorable moment, scoring a header in the 98th minute against Real Madrid to avoid elimination and propel the Portuguese club into the knockout rounds. On the other hand, the format of the competition was now so confusing that even Tropin himself did not know how important his goal would be to Benfica’s Champions League hopes.
Obviously there is no perfect solution, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try! With the play-off round taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday, we decided to ask our writers: How would you fix the Champions League format, within the limits of what might be possible?
Here are three great proposals from Mark Ogden, Gabriele Marcotti, and Bill Connelly, ranging from innovative to ingeniously effective.
Two minor leagues, one huge playoff run
UEFA has introduced several versions of the Champions League since the reform of the old European Cup format in the early 1990s. Despite the tweaks and changes, the competition is still the pinnacle of club football, and they haven’t been able to crack it yet.
But the knockout stages are where the magic happens. This is part of the problem that UEFA must overcome, because no matter how many times they replay the group stages, those early rounds will never have the danger and excitement of classic home-and-away, winner-take-all encounters.
The only reason the eighth round of the league stage was so exciting was because it had the feel of a knockout, with Benfica’s 4-2 win over Real Madrid – thanks to goalkeeper Tropin’s stoppage-time goal – being as good as any knockout match.
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With all that in mind, how can you fix the system to bring some life into the group/league stage? We’ll never get back to back-to-back first-round knockouts – there’s too much risk and not enough guaranteed money for the big clubs to make that happen – so there has to be some form of group stage.
So why not split the league stage into two and have two leagues feed into the knockout stages, in a similar way to how the AFC and NFC feed into the NFL playoffs? Instead of a bloated league of 36 teams, make it two divisions of 18 teams each with only the top two teams in each ensuring a 16th place finish in the round. The remaining 24 – 12 in each division – will go to a super-sized playoff round – with an open draw!
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Leboeuf: Benfica’s goalkeeper scoring was a miracle in the Champions League
Jurgen Klinsmann and Franck Leboeuf react to Anatoly Trubin’s last-minute goal to send Benfica into the Champions League qualifying rounds.
Let’s make sure that only the best teams have an advantage, so if you finish in the top two, you could face any team in the playoffs. You may end up playing with Real Madrid or Bodø/Glimt, but that will depend on the luck of the draw rather than position-based seeding. All teams will still play eight matches in the league stage, so there will be no decrease in match revenue
It still wouldn’t be the perfect format. Many teams will still be able to qualify at a mediocre stage of the league, and you can say that there will be many relatively meaningless matches, but I want the match between Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain or Real Madrid and Bayern Munich in November to be more important than it is now. Having only two automatic points available would heighten the tension at the top, and what we all want to see is the top players playing like they mean it. –Mark Ogden
Clubs have to choose their opponents
We’re being asked to be realistic here, so keep that in mind. We will not return to the days of one league/one team, nor will we return to direct knockout. (Besides, we actually have a separate knockout tournament running after the group stage anyway.)
I don’t think there is much wrong with the current format, but the main problem is in the seeding process. It is not particularly meaningful!
Last year, Liverpool topped the group stage, and their “reward” for that was facing Paris Saint-Germain, who finished 15th (and knocked out the Reds). Then there was Real Madrid, who finished 11th and ended up facing Manchester City (22nd). Granted, both teams were underachieving, but it was “punishment” for both of them. If Real Madrid had finished just one place lower, they would have faced – without the slightest respect – Celtic. Who would you rather play?
When we rank teams in the group stage by individual points (or worse, goal difference), it is not a scientific assessment of their relative strength. So let’s make the rankings mean something: let the clubs choose their opponents.
How can it work? Real Madrid finished in ninth place, making them the highest-ranked team in the knockout stages. Instead of being forced to play the No. 24 team (Benfica), they can choose any playoff team. Next up, Inter are in 10th place.. They can also pick up their poison.
Real Madrid may not want to see Jose Mourinho again so soon after this happened. Inter, who face Bodø/Glimt, may not want to travel north of the Arctic Circle to play on a plastic pitch in February. Whatever the reason, it would give the club a huge bonus for finishing higher, as well as creating a TV event: imagine giving a representative from each team 60 seconds “on the clock” to choose their opponent. Additionally, this naturally ensures that the biggest and best teams stay apart from each other for as long as possible.
Then it was repeated in the round of 16: Arsenal got first choice, followed by Bayern Munich, and so on. While we’re at it, let the highest-ranked team decide whether they want to play home or away first. We assume that playing at home in second place is an advantage, but some may not prefer it, whether due to match congestion, style of play or any other reason. Well, let them decide if they want to play on Tuesday or Wednesday as well.
These “athletic advantages” are things you can earn on the field that actually make sense. It makes it less likely that clubs late in the group stage will mail in or settle for a draw, once they know they won’t make the top eight. – Gabriele Marcotti
Actually, the new look is mostly good, but let’s make the seeding process more realistic
Honestly, I think the biggest change we can make is a mindset change. The giant eight-game league stage presents minimal risks, yes, but it has created some of the best stories of the season. After eight matches, both Benfica and Bodo/Glimt have overcome some early setbacks and clawed their way into the competition. Hell, Pafos and Union Saint-Gilloise almost did the same. They played better when they earned their spot, and that lack of risk-taking benefited us as viewers. Treating the league stage as real season – albeit small – With time for late twists and surprises, that makes this format a lot of fun, even if we know no one will be eliminated in October.
However, if we insist on making changes, I have a few small changes.
Firstly, for countries fielding four or more competitors, I will allow at least one match against a domestic competitor to be played in the league stage. If we’re going to live in a world where the Premier League makes all the money and can afford most of the best players, it would actually benefit them more not to have to play each other. It would certainly have been more difficult for Premier League teams to finish in five of the top eight in the table if, for example, Chelsea faced a trip to Arsenal, or Manchester City had to face their ghost team (Tottenham Hotspur). And hey, if we end up getting a random addition Classic or Classic Fell on the November list, who’s going to complain?
At the same time, although there are a lot of American touches suggested, I would go further in one specific area. Forget deseeding, you’ve hardly seeded everything!
There is a potentially huge difference between drawing, for example, seventh-placed Sporting Lisbon (currently 16th in the Opta rankings) and eighth-placed Manchester City (2nd) this year, or 17th-placed Borussia Dortmund (19th) and 18th-placed Olympiakos (45th). Last year, there was a big difference between top-ranked Liverpool drawing 15th-placed Paris Saint-Germain instead of 16th-placed Benfica, or 21st-placed Celtic instead of 22nd-placed Manchester City. There’s already a lot of randomness in what the final table looks like – we don’t need a final push of it with the draw. Let the table rule everything: In the round of 16, the No. 1 teams play the winners of No. 16 and No. 17, the No. 2 team plays the winners of No. 15 and No. 18, and so on.
These aren’t big changes because, frankly, I don’t think much needs to change. We play a mini-season long enough for serious plot twists and turns to occur, we have a few wild games at the end of the league stage, and then we have a giant bracket that takes us through a few months of action. The expansion of the competition has been driven almost entirely by the endless quest for more money, but as happens in this sport, the craven quest for money has given us more enjoyment from watching football. –Bill Connelly
