Champions League Draw - 29th August '24 | Opponents (pg69) | Fixtures (pg128)

[DenisHasDoneIt]

The Champions League was designed to ensure that big-revenue generators would go deep in the competition, and not be knocked out early by some sucker-puncher like Steaua Bucharest. The champions of Spain, so went the logic, should not be knocked out early by the champions of Finland. It’d be bad for business.

The last few versions of the Champions League however have produced an awful lot of very dull football in the group stages: some shock results, but rarely derailing a good team out of the competition. Teams who finished bottom of their group almost invariably deserved to, whether they were Dinamo Vladivostok or Barcelona.

This year, though, we have a league-like situation from the off. As @kippaxwarrior helpfully explains, there are clear advantages to finishing top of the league stage, but as teams don’t play everyone it’s not controllable. To avoid still more pointless games, and to increase the possibility in the early league-stage that Istree Club FC will play FC Club Histórico, early jeopardy is reintroduced, meaning that the final stages are harder to engineer.

I’m tentatively optimistic this will be an improvement. I may alter this view when I see the draw, of course.

 

[manimanc]

Sounds a right load of made up shite this draw.

 

[kippaxwarrior]

Suppose that is good because it means all teams will have to keep trying to win even if they've qualified for the top 8 with a game to play.

Yeah looking at the simulations and playing Football Manager way too much(!) I would say 16 points plus should get you into the top 8 to automatically qualify for the round of 16.

Teams who have 8-14 points on match day 8 would definitely have something to play for and match day 8 in the league phase should on paper be the most exciting as all 18 games are played simultaneously on the the same night so in theory league positions will change constantly

 

[kippaxwarrior]

Sounds a right load of made up shite this draw.

It's seems very convoluted but the more I've looked into it and got to understand it it I do think it's better than group stages. See my last couple of post about how it works.

In theory there should be a lot less dead rubbers and more jeopardy for bigger teams to get in that top 8 and get seeded so every match day should be interesting especially match day 8

 

[DiscoSteve]

There's definitely going to be winners and losers in this draw - there will be some top teams who will draw other top teams away and others who will get a bag of sh*te away - I'm looking forward to the fact we could get someone completely new away from home in Europe - there are of course 4 chances at this stage too! Sky Sports News on already in the office (which is actually encouraged where I am) - what times the draw? ;-)

 

[hammocity]

The draw is complicated but to summarise:

• You will play two teams from each pot, one at home and one away.
• The teams you play and whether you play at home or away is determined by a computer.
• There is no group, all 36 teams are in one league.
• If you finish top 8, you qualify for the last 16 directly.
• If you finish 9-24 then you have to play a two legged tie to qualify for the last 16.
• If you finish 25th to 36th you are completely eliminated from Europe (no dropping into Europa League etc).
• The knockout stages are largely determined by where you finish in the league stage so it's essentially a tennis bracket (picture below).
• There is no country protection after the league phase so we could play Arsenal, Liverpool, Villa from the knockout playoff match (before round of 16) if we and one of them finish 9-24th in the league. Before now you could not play them before the Quarter finals.

It's really not complicated, it's very simple and the draw is being conducted by computer because UEFA don't want teams to play others from the same country more than once if possible but it's inevitable some will be involved with two games but one at home and one away, eg, could play Stuggart at home and Bayern away.

With country protection and the above criteria the traditional draw was tested but it took 4 hours to complete so they've gone down the computerised "random" route.

Once the competition starts it won't be difficult to understand.

 

[kippaxwarrior]

There's definitely going to be winners and losers in this draw - there will be some top teams who will draw other top teams away and others who will get a bag of sh*te away - I'm looking forward to the fact we could get someone completely new away from home in Europe - there are of course 4 chances at this stage too! Sky Sports News on already in the office (which is actually encouraged where I am) - what times the draw? ;-)

5pm. It's on the BBC

 

[LangleyBlue1970]

My heads gone reading some of the posts trying to clear this up. Appreciate the effort gone into those posts, but fuck me, my head is dead.

 

[heslops barnet]

My heads gone reading some of the posts trying to clear this up. Appreciate the effort gone into those posts, but fuck me, my head is dead.

Let’s just beat any team we play……fuck all the head games

 

[GortonBlue62]

It's really not complicated, it's very simple and the draw is being conducted by computer because UEFA don't want teams to play others from the same country more than once if possible but it's inevitable some will be involved with two games but one at home and one away, eg, could play Stuggart at home and Bayern away.

With country protection and the above criteria the traditional draw was tested but it took 4 hours to complete so they've gone down the computerised "random" route.

Once the competition starts it won't be difficult to understand.

Agree. With so many explanations floating around it's easy to understand.

The Group Stage system was getting stale so I'm looking forward to the new format. Four away games give us a better chance of going somewhere interesting; would love Bologna.

The computer will generate the outcome in seconds. Will all the fixtures be then available immediately or will they contrive a slow reveal?

So here's matchday1 with 5 minutes chat, and now the second set of games, etc?