by The queen of European football is preparing to face its most radical change. Last Wednesday’s matches are already part of the history of the Champions League for being the last to be played in the current group stage format. The structure of the top European competition will change significantly and The next campaign will be the first since 1992 in which the group stage will disappear.
FC Barcelona lost its last group stage match against Antwerp last night. Although the Blaugranas had nothing at stake, Barça’s defeat meant losing around 3 million euros, as well as losing their last group stage match until further notice.
With Atlético de Madrid’s victory against Lazio, the Spanish teams achieved a new record in the last opportunity of the group stage. For the first time in the history of the Champions League, 4 Spanish teams qualified for the round of 16 as group winners.
However, this record will not be able to happen again because the group stage will disappear starting next season.
This will be the new Champions League
The first and big change of the new format is the Expansion from 32 to 36 participating teams.. All these teams will be distributed in 4 blocks of 9 teams eachdistributed from 1 to 36 according to the UEFA coefficient, which is calculated based on the performance of each club in Europe in the last five seasons.
The new format is a kind of 36-team league where each team will play 8 games (4 at home and 4 as a visitor), thus playing against 2 teams from each block.
Once this first phase is finished, the 36 teams are ordered according to the points obtained from first to thirty-sixth. The top eight teams in that league qualify directly for the round of 16while the 16 teams that occupy the places from 9th to 24th will play against each other one double-leg tie.
From there, the Champions League will be exactly as we know it today: round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and final.
By playing more games than in the current format, The Champions League will start earlier, that is, at the end of August or beginning of September. Furthermore, apart from having matches on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, there will also be some Thursdays with Champions League matches. Another big change in the new format is that lThe eliminated teams will no longer be able to enjoy the option of playing in the Europa League.
In this way, the Champions League is preparing for an unprecedented radical change that will give a lot to talk about once it is put into practice. The top European competition will take place despite the group stage and the current format until further notice.
