New CL Format Thoughts

Hes the left back remember said:
Am I right in thinking that we will have faced 6 champions of their country which seems a bit odd in comparison to other teams
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I said on draw day when for once we were the first team out * see domestic cup competitions when that never happens. I do think we got the worst of the English team draws.
 
ysmsa said:
Going through the motions?

I thought we were nailed on to finish top 3 and here we are fighting to make the top 24.
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We're basically one win away from making the top 24. And if we don’t make it beyond 29th January 2025 then it won't be thanks to a brilliant new format.

UEFA have tried to be all things to all men - they want more games because they want more money. They want some sort of jeopardy but not the sort that sees the big boys go out too early (hence the playoff round for not finishing in the top 8). Take PSG, for example - they have been utterly hapless but will make the top 24. If they go out to, say, Bayer Leverkusen in the playoff round, they'll have still played ten games - the same number they'd have played if they'd gone out in the QF under the old format.

It's bloated and surviving purely on novelty value. In two years' time, I predict that many more people will be bored. A lot of fans of clubs not involved don't like this format.
 
Shit getting real for us. Real and PSG won tonight. Even Brugge beating Sporting.
Results go badly v Juve and PSG, we could be even needing to beat Brugge to even get in the play offs (where we run the risk of a really tough tie)
Looking at the table 9-24, there are at least half the teams who will be a total nightmare.
 
ken tali said:
3 Wins might just do it ,but no other way.
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Sporting Lisbon away and Feyenoord at home seen as easier ties to win :0(

And that didn’t go well for us?? 1point

So we will do very very well to win both Juve and PSG away and currently, I am not so sure?? 2 draws and beat Bruges at home, and hopefully, regroup and go again in February 2025, is more realistic and what our current form will entitle us to??
 
CTID Somerset said:
Sporting Lisbon away and Feyenoord at home seen as easier ties to win :0(

And that didn’t go well for us?? 1point

So we will do very very well to win both Juve and PSG away and currently, I am not so sure?? 2 draws and beat Bruges at home, and hopefully, regroup and go again in February 2025, is more realistic and what our current form will entitle us to??
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That will likely be alright for the play offs, but won't for the top 8. Only got ourselves to blame for this current predicament.
 
Alexia_Ko said:
ATM it’s not about form, It’s about injuries. More games means more injuries. It would definitely be costly for us to play an extra round of games.
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The worry about more matches meaning more chance of injuries started around the Winter World Cup in 2022. Now we’re well past that being an issue because the injuries have happened and many of our players have missed a lot of games so aren’t match fit and they can only get match fit by playing matches.

Plus there are players who’ve not had a single injury who are very much out of form. The form of the whole squad as a collective is all over the shop, the only way to rectify that is by playing matches.

For once, more games for us is a positive. Will do our whole squad some good.

Might as well finish 25th and not have to play any extra games at all that way if we’re worried about too many games at this point.
 
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I'm probably in the minority that I quite like the new format. More different teams to play for one thing.

One problem with it is it seems the difficulty of opponents is so variable. Fair play to Brest but have they played anyone good? Same for Celtic. Don't we get some kind of seeding as being a top team or is that gone now?
 
hcblue95 said:
I'm probably in the minority that I quite like the new format. More different teams to play for one thing.

One problem with it is it seems the difficulty of opponents is so variable. Fair play to Brest but have they played anyone good? Same for Celtic. Don't we get some kind of seeding as being a top team or is that gone now?
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I looked at the matches played by Brest so far:

They played Sturm Graz, Leverkusen, and PSV at home and Salzburg, Sparta Prague, and Barcelona away.

They still have Shakhtar at home and Real Madrid away.

For an unseeded team that looks a very easy run of fixtures to me.
 
JGL07 said:
I looked at the matches played by Brest so far:

They played Sturm Graz, Leverkusen, and PSV at home and Salzburg, Sparta Prague, and Barcelona away.

They still have Shakhtar at home and Real Madrid away.

For an unseeded team that looks a very easy run of fixtures to me.
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To be fair to UEFA. this was one of the major drivers of the new format.

Under the old group phase the average coefficient spread was historically wide (last season was 52 points, for example). For this season's "group" (league) stage, the average spread is down to around a 19 points.

The new format was geared to reducing the spread to, in theory, make it more competitive from the off. I think that's been somewhat demonstrated by the results so far, aside from Liverpool.
 
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