Some of our early groups were pretty tough. One year Real Madrid, Dortmund, City and Ajax were all in the same group. All of which were Champions of their respective league.Reality is, when you’re as good as City are at the minute, any group format you can think of is going to be a boring, no jeopardy, stroll to the knock out stages.
If this was the Mancini days, when getting out of the group was considered a major achievement, we would have been in a better position to judge if it’s an improvement or not.
But hard to say when both formats are almost certainly going to produce the same predictable outcome.
Just wait until they do the 'draw' for 9th to 24th....I'm looking forwards to seeing a Juve v A Mardid. We'll never see that kind of game in the preliminary knockout round tho.If one of the 'big guns' don't make it through they will fine tune it with a WILD CARD directive based on 'istory or some made up coefficient shit.
With us being top of UEFA's coefficients we're not getting any benefit from the success we've had under the previous format. However Villa who are way down the rankings have benefited a lot. They probably have a set of easier fixtures than we do.
When we first won the League we didn't get in Pot 1 for the following season's CL, that was changed to Pot 1 teams being the CL winners and the league winners from the highest ranked European Leagues.
Now we've got the highest ranking it's been changed again. I think teams shouldn't play others from the same pot, there has to be some reward for winning a domestic league.
Such a non-sense comment. Bayern haven't lost a group stage match in like 10 years, until this year. Why? Because now, everyone has to play really competitive matches.The lack of jeopardy is becoming more apparent. Bayern Munich have lost 2 out of 3 games and are still in the top 24. Had they lost 2 out of 3 in the old four team group stage they would be in danger of not qualifying for the knockout stages.
A bet at least one top team won’t make it. Bayern for one are in big trouble, PSG too.Nowhere near as boring as the old groups.Not a single top seed team will fail to get to the last 16. Not a single decent team from pot 2 will fail to get through. More games. Same boring shit. League is a farce and just isn't a point of comparison. Not sure if it happens but after 4 games every team should have played a team from pots 1, 2, 3 and 4. At least we'd have something to go off then.
I'm fairly sure you get more money for qualifying via league position than you get for playing the extra gamesTwo extra games were added for more revenue for each team but if you fail to get into the top eight then you have to play another two extra games to qualify - so failure earns more money.
Give it a few years and then somebody will suggest promotion and relegation from the CL to the EL
Give it a few more years and they'll call it the European Super League
Two extra games were added for more revenue for each team but if you fail to get into the top eight then you have to play another two extra games to qualify - so failure earns more money.
Don't be giving Soriano ideas!Probably a few teams thinking if we finish outside the top 8 we get extra match revenue.
I know, I just know one chief exec has thought about it though.Don't be giving Soriano ideas!
The last two we played were national champions. Where does that leave those who say it should be champions only?Too many daft teams in it.
The last 2 we’ve played would get beat by decent Sunday league sides.
The league table is too big and with not every team playing every other team in it, makes the table feel like it means nothing.
Before there was just one other fixture you needed to take notice of a week, from your own group. Now you don’t know what’s a good result and what’s not from any fixture on any night.
Its just a load of random games that don’t make any sense or have much meaning because there’s too much leeway to allow the teams well down the table to end up in the KO Phase due to 24 of the 36 teams not being immediately eliminated.
You could be shite for the most part of 8 games, could even rest players or play at 50% effort and just do enough to get enough points to just finish in the 24… then turn up all guns blazing for the eliminator round and go from there.
Bret are currently 5th after a good start, but they might come unstuck a few times and end up say 9th. Conversely, Leipzig are currently 31st, but a few wins against the dross they’ll be facing and they could make the 24. They could get drawn against Brest and turn up for the eliminator round and scrape through after a really poor League Phase showing.