Mixed reviews for new Champs League format

Opinion

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This article was published 24/01/2025 (230 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The reviews are in, and they are … mixed.

“Exciting?” Depends who you ask. “Unpredictable?” Depends when. “Popular?” Yes and no.

On Wednesday, what was formerly the UEFA Champions League group stage will conclude, presenting a final, single list of standings to enthusiasts, disparagers and recent converts from one position to the other.

Will the 36-team table have done enough to head off further talk of a new European Super League? Was that even its purpose? The new format was fairer, though. Or was it? Can something be both fair and compelling?

In case we need a catch-up, UEFA replaced its familiar four-team groups with one gigantic League Phase for the 2024-25 season. Participants were organized into four pots of nine and drawn randomly against two teams from each pot.

It sounds more complicated than it actually is, though that’s never a good thing for a tournament’s organizer. Essentially, each team was assigned a pair of opponents from four levels of difficulty. The final games will go Wednesday (all kick-offs at 2 p.m. on DAZN), after which the top eight will progress to the next round while teams nine through 24 will face two-legged play-offs to complete a round of 16.

Again, it’s not as wild as it sounds; again, not ideal. While we’re considering drawbacks, it should be noted fans prefer knowing the standings in their minds. Easy enough with a four-team group. With this? Here’s guessing almost no one can close their eyes and conjure an image of the League Phase table.

At what place are Bologna? Sturm Graz? Exactly.

On the other hand — and evaluating this format is really a back and forth of “on the other hands” — the revamped Champions League has served some of the more, shall we say, non-traditional participants and their supporters quite well.

For example, in August when the schedule was determined, Stuttgart manager Sebastian Hoeness remarked a match at reigning champions Real Madrid was “at the top of the agenda” and his club was excited to lock horns with the best teams in Europe.

Stuttgart wound up losing 3-1 in Spain. A 1-0 win at Juventus in October, however, combined with rather more predictable victories over Young Boys and Slovan Bratislava, ensured they’d go into Wednesday’s match at home to Paris Saint-Germain knowing a point might be enough to put them into the knock-outs.

PSG, meanwhile, will have expected to be in a better position than 22nd going into the final matchday. The draw did them no favours, and thanks to defeats by Arsenal, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich their progress in the competition is anything but assured.

Celtic and Brest are two more clubs that have done well by this format.

Thanks to their 1-0 win at home to Young Boys earlier this week, Celtic secured Champions League knock-out football for the first time in 12 years and manager Brendan Rodgers gushed that the achievement was “a little bit of history created.”

Brest, meanwhile, are an impressive 13th in the single table ­— ahead of the likes of Bayern Munich, Juventus and Real Madrid. “People here savour the present,” remarked manager Eric Roy in a recent interview with The Guardian. “They know it might not last.” In the meantime, the club’s fans have dubbed him “King Eric.”

They’ll face Real Madrid in just one of Wednesday’s fascinating showdowns. Another will take place at Etihad Stadium, where elimination-threatened Manchester City will need to beat Club Brugge in order to sneak into the next round. Lille and Feyenoord could still finish in the top eight, and they’ll face one another in France. Juventus-Benfica will also be pivotal.

Scott Young, the senior vice-president of sport at UK Champions League rights holder TNT, and one of the few people whose opinion actually matters, told The Guardian Friday that he’d wait until the season was over before judging the new format’s success.

One the one hand, he said, the “additional jeopardy” upcoming on Wednesday provided “added value.” On the other, he conceded the typical fan needed to be a “strong mathematician” to follow the standings.

Not everyone has been as cautious in their feedback.

Liverpool boss Arne Slot has called it “weird.” According to Max Eberl, the Bayern sporting director, it’s “interesting and exciting.” Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti has said the extra games are “something negative.”

Mixed reviews to be sure. Somewhere in there we can probably locate how most players, managers, administrators, network executives and supporters feel about this re-imagined Champions League.

The only consensus is that Wednesday’s schedule will be box-office stuff.

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