New CL Format Thoughts

noseve said:
Not sure about that - I wish we'd taken Feyenoord and Sporting seriously for the full 90 minutes.

Didn't realise how much I regretted going out, until watching it last night.
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My point being though that if you're not good enough to win in the playoffs, you're not good enough to win it.

Finishing higher up might have got us to the last 16 but we wouldn't have got much further.
 
I don't like the format at all - any old half-arsed justification for increasing the number of teams/countries involved, just to bring in extra revenue.

No tournament with this title should see some of the canings that were dished out this year, surely?

I do prefer the previous format to the old European Cup, where it was knockout from R1, with zero seeding (I remember Liverpool bleating when they were dumped out by Forest), but there was a purity to it, only involving champions.

Glad that we won it while we were reigning champions - and the top teams we beat en route validates it even more.
 
Pubteam Lomas said:
What I said before Christmas is that a team like Real wouldn't careless where if they finished 13th.
They'd just back themselves to win the play off game and then the competition.
Some clubs thought finishing first was worthy of a trophy.
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The main advantage of finishing in top 8 is 2 less games to play. They also have 2nd leg at home and will probably be playing a" lesser" team in the last 16 knock out stage.
Only one of the teams outside top 8 in the league have gone directly into the quarter finals while 2 others, Madrid and PSG, have had to rely on a penalty shoot out.
I don't think Madrid will take that chance again.
They have been fortunate to meet a City team at our worst and a fortunate enough penalty win over Athletico.
 
noseve said:
I don't like the format at all - any old half-arsed justification for increasing the number of teams/countries involved, just to bring in extra revenue.

No tournament with this title should see some of the canings that were dished out this year, surely?

I do prefer the previous format to the old European Cup, where it was knockout from R1, with zero seeding (I remember Liverpool bleating when they were dumped out by Forest), but there was a purity to it, only involving champions.

Glad that we won it while we were reigning champions - and the top teams we beat en route validates it even more.
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Not too many reigning champs left in it at this stage.
Imagine if Villa won it.
 
TinFoilHat said:
View attachment 149656

"We finished top and had to play PSG!"
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Hehe - the new format gives teams this additional bogus reason to complain.

I'd never previously heard anybody say "not fair - we earned more points in our group than they did...", but this year each team was in their own, unique, group, so why now decide to make a comparison?

Just grateful Mourinho isn't in it - he'd have worked out a dozen reasons for his lot not qualifying, before a ball was even kicked :-)
 
I really don’t like the new format.

I think any English team will struggle to win the CL in this format (tbh I only give a fuck about city winning it)

Far too many games.
At least in other countries like France they allow the CL clubs to play on a Friday evening to allow them a few more hours rest.

Whereas I remember us being forced to play Chelsea in the cup on a Sunday then Real Madrid on a Tuesday (possibly a Wednesday) under Pellegrini.
 
I think the new format is top class.

With you only playing a side once and they are all random for everyone, it has added an FA Cup style knockout feel to the group stage will allows the smaller teams to have hope they can go through.

The last matchday of the league phase was thrilling entertainment, the table constantly changed.

What's upset some of the top teams, including us, was that they took some games in the league phase far too lightly thinking it was going to be like the old group phase where you only needed to win 3 or 4 games and the rest were run of the mill where the weaker opposition just didn't really care.

Every game is virtually must win now.

City, PSG and Real Madrid were the biggest culprits of this and it's the reason why Liverpool and Atletico ended up playing them in the round of 16.
 
Micky Blue said:
I really don’t like the new format.

I think any English team will struggle to win the CL in this format (tbh I only give a fuck about city winning it)

Far too many games.
At least in other countries like France they allow the CL clubs to play on a Friday evening to allow them a few more hours rest.

Whereas I remember us being forced to play Chelsea in the cup on a Sunday then Real Madrid on a Tuesday (possibly a Wednesday) under Pellegrini.
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If we had beaten PSG, they would have had to win their last game to qualify. That win against us saved them because they like us were on the verge of going out.
 
four of the top eight in the league format are out and teams that finished 10, 11, 12 and 15 still left in. All of the last four teams lost three games in the group stages and PSG last a fourth against the dippers.
 
I like the new format. The old one was stale.
Should throw up more exciting draws.
As far as I'm concerned if a team qualifies to enter it then they have every right to win it, even if they are not champions of their leagues.
If we qualify for next seasons we will be in there as 5th choice (probably).
Anyone bemoaning the lack of new away trips needs to realise that away trips in the Premier league are pretty much static anyway.
At least in chumps there should be some obscure places to visit, irregularly.
Anyway, as long as Madrid don't win it, I'm not at all fussed who does this year.
 
I don't mind the new format now we're in the knockouts, but would keep it down to six games in the future, take it back to 32 teams overall, and cull the play-offs. All these extra games, all those shit teams that were getting battered 5-0 and 6-0 every week they played. Bratislava played six qualifying games only to end up finishing second bottom of the league with a GD of -20. Just no point going through all that nonsense.

If you finish 1st-16th, you go through to the last 16. If you finish 17th-32nd, tough shit, out you go. Maybe 17th-24th could be in the Europa League or something, but I think there should be a stronger punishment for not being good enough and going all the way out of Europe feels right. It's all the extra games that's bothering me. Liverpool finish top of the league stage but end up playing the same number of games as City did? Nah.
 
By the time you arrive at the last eight there isn’t much of a difference in the standard between the two formats. It’s normal that about 5 of the last 8 are in the top 8 teams by elo rank.

This year 6 of the top 8 are there.

If City and Liverpool had made it instead of Villa and Dortmund the top 8 would all feature.

City just collapsed.

Liverpool got unlucky drawing PSG mainly due the fact that PSG performed below par in the group stage.

There are things I like about the new format and things I don’t. All in all there isn’t a clear winning format for me.
 
Gorbachev said:
I think the new format is top class.

With you only playing a side once and they are all random for everyone, it has added an FA Cup style knockout feel to the group stage will allows the smaller teams to have hope they can go through.

The last matchday of the league phase was thrilling entertainment, the table constantly changed.

What's upset some of the top teams, including us, was that they took some games in the league phase far too lightly thinking it was going to be like the old group phase where you only needed to win 3 or 4 games and the rest were run of the mill where the weaker opposition just didn't really care.

Every game is virtually must win now.

City, PSG and Real Madrid were the biggest culprits of this and it's the reason why Liverpool and Atletico ended up playing them in the round of 16.
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Didn’t work for us we got a bloody awful draw.
 
Cobwebcat said:
By the time you arrive at the last eight there isn’t much of a difference in the standard between the two formats. It’s normal that about 5 of the last 8 are in the top 8 teams by elo rank.

This year 6 of the top 8 are there.

If City and Liverpool had made it instead of Villa and Dortmund the top 8 would all feature.

City just collapsed.

Liverpool got unlucky drawing PSG mainly due the fact that PSG performed below par in the group stage.

There are things I like about the new format and things I don’t. All in all there isn’t a clear winning format for me.
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In the last eight four finished in the automatic qualifier places the other four from the sixteen play-off teams. I suspect that 50/50 split happened under the previous format i.e. four group winners and four runners up.

I just do not like the extra matches, there is far too much workload on the players as it is.
 
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