CL draw Automated

[hammocity]

As somebody who’s entire job is based on data and modelling, if you make something like a football tournament so complex that it requires a computer to do the draw then you’ve hella fucked up.

You either have a simple format with constraints (e.g. teams from the same country can’t be drawn together) OR you have a more complex format like a Swiss with no constraints.

Trying to do both is absolute madness.

You're right about the teams from the same country not playing each other but also factored in is teams not playing against others from different countries more than once if possible

There's a caveat that means any team could end up playing more than one match against teams from the same country where necessary, I'd like to think at least the away games will be in four different countries, that's why I'm sure they've gone down the computer route.

I can see it now:

"If Manchester City get any other team apart from Real Madrid away in pot one then Manchester City play Real Madrid away"

 

[East Level 2]

To be fair, things only evolved this way because the likes of Madrid, Barça, Milan, Inter, Juve, Bayern, United and Liverpool wanted to cement their names at the top of football forever, forever earning more money than everyone else, and allow all leagues East of Germany and Italy to rot. They would likely qualify for the CL most seasons even if they had a shit season (it goes as low as five places now in some leagues) and would likely qualify for the KO stages each season.

If it wasn’t for investment like City’s and Malaga’s, things would just be the same every season… and look what they did to Malaga and look what they’re doing to City, just because we upset that gravy train!

Countries like Poland, Romania, Greece, Turkey etc. are football mad, but their clubs have no money and can’t compete with those above, because those above designed it that way.

Good European football should be seeing clubs like Steaua Bucharest, Ferrncvaros, Legia Warszawa, Lech Poznań, Olympiacos, PAOK, Galatasaray, Fenerbache (it doesn’t have to be exactly these, they just popped into my head first) all be as good as those clubs mentioned at the start with a more balanced quality of leagues around Europe.

Which is exactly why UEFA should have fucked off the G14 when they threatened a breakaway around 30 years ago.
Let them form their own "Super League", ban them from domestic tournaments, and prevent them returning above a certain level when their "Super League" folded due to fans getting fed up of watching the same few teams.
But UEFA saw the potential increase in broadcast revenue, and let's be clear, that revenue was primarily from armchair supporters, and decided they would like a slice of the pie. They disguised this as having more money to support weaker leagues but it simply meant the rich got richer.