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

[JGL07]

Too much football these days as far as I am concerned.

UEFA and FIFA competing with each other to expand club competitions without any thought of player welfare.

The problem is that there are three organisations: the EPL, UEFA, and FIFA.

The EPL are unlikely to want to reduce the number of League matches as beyond the top six (or so), most teams fear relegation if the league was to be reduced to 18 teams as per the Bundesliga.

UEFA have just increased the Group Stages of the CL from six to eight matches.

FIFA have introduced an expanded World Club Cup taking place every four years. They have also tried to make the World Cup run every two years rather than every four years.

Put together this is unsustainable.

There could be up to 64 matches for English teams in club competitions every season. Every four years there could be up to another 7 matches for the World Club Cup.

That is before you factor in all the international matches for the European Championships and World Cup, qualifiers and finals not to mention the Nations League. There will be finals running every second year adding to the pressure.

The problem is that none of the three organisations appear likely to back off.

Tinkering around by, say, scrapping the EFL Cup will not solve this problem. Short of a breakaway league, the only solution is larger playing squads and ruthless rotation.

 

[vmsuhail]

Finishing 9th in the league is the same as finishing 24th ? If so, then I think there will be a lot of pointless games from the 6th round onwards.

 

[cheddar404]

Never been a big fan of the chumps league and have only ever watched City games and Finals with English teams.Obviously still happy we won it ,but wasn't particularly bothered when we got knocked out last season This new format and extra games along with the ridiculous world club cup next year are putting me off watching any football outside of domestic games .The greed for money within the sport has gone beyond ridiculous.

It's a shite competition isn't it? Total waste of time. I wouldn't bother going if I didn't need the loyalty points.It should go back to knockout over 2 legs with champions only and I'd be more interested.

 

[Protein Junkie]

BBC very wise to not put a name to their recent article on the Champions League draw - wouldn't want any death threats

How does Champions League draw work?​

It means more matches between the biggest teams. For example, Manchester City could face Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.

 

[No One Understands]

This is a pretty thorough explanation with examples. Not sure how I feel about it. Seems that it will be a lot more competitive with more games. With the club world cup, this is starting to look like a stupid season after the euros, Copa, and Olympics.
https://www.espn.co.uk/football/sto...ons-league-mock-draw-how-new-format-plays-out

 

[Gingers Dad]

I just don't like this new format- and it's nothing to do with being adverse to change. I liked finishing the top of the group, you were guaranteed a home draw second in last 16. We are bound to get shite away draws in the league like Real, Bayern, Inter, Atletico, PSG. For me come back Shaktar, Copenhagen etc, all is forgiven.

Ihmo even though this is supposedly a 'random' automated draw that there is room for a degree of manipulation to get the ties they want and practically guarantee certain Spainish, German, Italian and Red English teams a place in the top 8 of the league.....

Nah, I dislike it immensely already.

I like the 32 team format with 8 groups of 4. The top 2 go through to the last 16. Easy to understand and about as fair as it could be.
This new format is complicated and a lot of games played to get rid of 8 teams. There isn't much jeopardy in the league stage for the top teams.

 

[Gingers Dad]

Young Boys going through.

We gave them a right good spanking last time

 

[deano ou812]

What time is the draw made and I take it it’s on TNT ..

 

[Stephen230]

This is a pretty thorough explanation with examples. Not sure how I feel about it. Seems that it will be a lot more competitive with more games. With the club world cup, this is starting to look like a stupid season after the euros, Copa, and Olympics.
https://www.espn.co.uk/football/sto...ons-league-mock-draw-how-new-format-plays-out

Good article and clears up the couple of remaining things I was unsure about.

This is an interesting snippet if you can’t be arsed reading it all. Their mock simulation created the following outlook going into week 8. Obviously there’s no guarantee it will turn out like this but if it’s anything like it, they’ll still be plenty of interest right through to the end.

Whatever happens it’s going to be an unprecedented night on week 8, with 18 matches played simultaneously.

 

[chesterbells]

What time is the draw made and I take it it’s on TNT ..

BBC now as well I think.
“From” 5pm Thursday