New Formats Post 2024-

[Tazmania]

I'm still wondering why they don't go for the solution with the pre-determined schedule and then drawing teams one by one and assigning them to their position. They would only need to draw 36 balls for this, which is absolutely manageable.

If there are no country restrictions in the league phase, it is strange that they did not adopt this method.

[Overgame]

Even country protection might be impossible. It could happen next season (but very unlikely).
In red team failing to qualify

1 Manchester City - 1 or 2 or 3
2 Bayern München
3 Real Madrid
4 Paris Saint-Germain
5 Liverpool - 1 or 2 or 3
6 Internazionale
7 RB Leipzig
8 Chelsea
9 AS Roma
10 Manchester United - 5
21 Arsenal - CLTH - 1 or 2 or 3
24 West Ham United - ELTH - doesn't matter

With 5 teams in pot A, the teams from England have to play 10 games, and the 4 other teams will only play 8 games in total. And to prevent too much "country protection exceptions", these 4 teams will have to face 2 english teams.

Or another situation, 4 teams from country A, 3 from country B and 2 from country C. If we want to enforce country protection and not facing 2 teams from the same country:
-country C have to face team from A and B, let's label them A1 A2 B1 and B2
-B3 has no opponent available from country C and must face 2 teams from country A

Even with 4 from A, 3 from B 1 from C and 1 from D, the same issue arises.


And let's see if something like his could have happened:
22/23
1 Manchester City
2 Bayern München
3 Chelsea
4 Liverpool
5 Real Madrid
6 Paris Saint-Germain
7 Manchester United
8 Juventus
9 FC Barcelona
12 Sevilla - ELTH

4 teams from England, 3 from Spain, 1 from Germany and 1 from France. The only missing link would have been Chelsea.
Oh, and Italy could have been close of causing this issue in pot 2.

[eye]

I believe having country protection at leagues is wrong. When all clubs are compared to each other there shouldn't be such restrictions because it is unfair for many clubs. Even when pots are balanced there are always some stronger clubs you want to avoid and some weaker you want to be drawn against them so country protection gives an unfair treatment to clubs. It also makes the draw too complicated. Without country protection the draw would have been very simple, each club would be drawning their home match from each pot but with country protection it becomes too complicated since there are 4-5 clubs from many countries. For EL and ECL the draw is much more simple.
Probably pre-determined schedule may be the only way to have a real draw without the need a computer to decide about the ties and again this is not something simple since it depends on how clubs from same country are shared in the pots. Another option might be to draw first the top3 clubs of all top5 leagues first and avoid matches between clubs from same country and then draw all rest clubs since we can have matches from clubs of same country if country has 4 or more clubs at competition and it is simple to avoid the match of the 2 clubs from same country when country has only 2 clubs in competition.

[TommyChat]

Even country protection might be impossible. It could happen next season (but very unlikely).
In red team failing to qualify

1 Manchester City - 1 or 2 or 3
2 Bayern München
3 Real Madrid
4 Paris Saint-Germain
5 Liverpool - 1 or 2 or 3
6 Internazionale
7 RB Leipzig
8 Chelsea
9 AS Roma
10 Manchester United - 5
21 Arsenal - CLTH - 1 or 2 or 3
24 West Ham United - ELTH - doesn't matter

With 5 teams in pot A, the teams from England have to play 10 games, and the 4 other teams will only play 8 games in total. And to prevent too much "country protection exceptions", these 4 teams will have to face 2 english teams.

Or another situation, 4 teams from country A, 3 from country B and 2 from country C. If we want to enforce country protection and not facing 2 teams from the same country:
-country C have to face team from A and B, let's label them A1 A2 B1 and B2
-B3 has no opponent available from country C and must face 2 teams from country A

Even with 4 from A, 3 from B 1 from C and 1 from D, the same issue arises.


And let's see if something like his could have happened:
22/23
1 Manchester City
2 Bayern München
3 Chelsea
4 Liverpool
5 Real Madrid
6 Paris Saint-Germain
7 Manchester United
8 Juventus
9 FC Barcelona
12 Sevilla - ELTH

4 teams from England, 3 from Spain, 1 from Germany and 1 from France. The only missing link would have been Chelsea.
Oh, and Italy could have been close of causing this issue in pot 2.

ELTH is not mentioned anywhere to be still getting pot A. It says TH and 8 top ranked teams, so ELTH will be ranked according to their ranking.

[Overgame]

Snip

ELTH is not mentioned anywhere to be still getting pot A. It says TH and 8 top ranked teams, so ELTH will be ranked according to their ranking.

Thanks for the information. So unlikely to happen in pot A next year.

[amirbachar]

…
4) we don’t know if a team can be paired with multiple opponents from the same country or not
…
To be honest I would prefer the following :
Fix all fixtures in advance ( A1-A2, A3-A4 etc ) for all 144 fixtures
Then draw a team at random from Pot A and allocate it to a slot (A1 to A9)
Then every time you draw a team , you must condisder constrains listed above and see to which slot it can be allocated ( avoiding dead ends ) this would be quite fast as you would only need to draw a handful of teams and all others will be forced into their slots

Agreed on the “pre-determined schedule” solution (I suggested that back in August) they will call it something else and the draw might be different, but I still believe that at least behind the scenes that is what they’ll implement.

There is no need for #4.They might introduce excessive travel restrictions (can you image a team from Iceland having to travel to Western or southern Turkey and Israel win back to back weeks with a league game in between). There is no legitimate reason to stop a Swiss team playing against two Slovenian or Slovakian teams and it will add a great complexity to the draw.

There is a need for #4, to have more equal strentgh schedules, since coefficients alone is a weak indicator of strength.

[Sagy]

…
4) we don’t know if a team can be paired with multiple opponents from the same country or not
…
To be honest I would prefer the following :
Fix all fixtures in advance ( A1-A2, A3-A4 etc ) for all 144 fixtures
Then draw a team at random from Pot A and allocate it to a slot (A1 to A9)
Then every time you draw a team , you must condisder constrains listed above and see to which slot it can be allocated ( avoiding dead ends ) this would be quite fast as you would only need to draw a handful of teams and all others will be forced into their slots

Agreed on the “pre-determined schedule” solution (I suggested that back in August) they will call it something else and the draw might be different, but I still believe that at least behind the scenes that is what they’ll implement.

There is no need for #4.They might introduce excessive travel restrictions (can you image a team from Iceland having to travel to Western or southern Turkey and Israel win back to back weeks with a league game in between). There is no legitimate reason to stop a Swiss team playing against two Slovenian or Slovakian teams and it will add a great complexity to the draw.

There is a need for #4, to have more equal strentgh schedules, since coefficients alone is a weak indicator of strength.

Not sure how that will help, pot 1 will have one French team, it is highly likely that the “weakest” team in pot 1 will be English or Spanish. It is also likely that at any other pot, the English and Spanish teams are going to be “stronger” than the French team in the same pot. Let’s follow your logic:
1) I get the weakest pot 1 (not French) and you got PSG
2) It’s unlikely that there will be French teams in pot 2
3) In pots 3, where your point is probably most critical, you get to avoid a French team that is likely to be weaker than the English or Spanish team that I will avoid.

You ended up getting a stronger pot 1 and a stronger pot 3 opponents because of this restriction.

Remember, in every pot, two teams will get PSG and two teams will get the weakest pot 1 team. The above scenario is guaranteed to occur multiple times.

Yes, there are counter examples, that just goes to show that it’s the luck of the draw. Artificial restrictions will not address the real risk of an unbalanced strength of opponents.

[amirbachar]

Agreed on the “pre-determined schedule” solution (I suggested that back in August) they will call it something else and the draw might be different, but I still believe that at least behind the scenes that is what they’ll implement.

There is no need for #4.They might introduce excessive travel restrictions (can you image a team from Iceland having to travel to Western or southern Turkey and Israel win back to back weeks with a league game in between). There is no legitimate reason to stop a Swiss team playing against two Slovenian or Slovakian teams and it will add a great complexity to the draw.

There is a need for #4, to have more equal strentgh schedules, since coefficients alone is a weak indicator of strength.

Not sure how that will help, pot 1 will have one French team, it is highly likely that the “weakest” team in pot 1 will be English or Spanish. It is also likely that at any other pot, the English and Spanish teams are going to be “stronger” than the French team in the same pot. Let’s follow your logic:
1) I get the weakest pot 1 (not French) and you got PSG
2) It’s unlikely that there will be French teams in pot 2
3) In pots 3, where your point is probably most critical, you get to avoid a French team that is likely to be weaker than the English or Spanish team that I will avoid.

You ended up getting a stronger pot 1 and a stronger pot 3 opponents because of this restriction.

Remember, in every pot, two teams will get PSG and two teams will get the weakest pot 1 team. The above scenario is guaranteed to occur multiple times.

Yes, there are counter examples, that just goes to show that it’s the luck of the draw. Artificial restrictions will not address the real risk of an unbalanced strength of opponents.

On average it still balances the draw.

[fabiomh]

Question about Pot1 criteria:

Today Pot1 is based on champions of the Top countries + CL /EL THs.
Pot 2, 3 , 4 are based on the remaining teams ranking.

Will this rule remain from 24-25 onwards? Or will it be based fully on teams ranking?

[eye]

Question about Pot1 criteria:

Today Pot1 is based on champions of the Top countries + CL /EL THs.
Pot 2, 3 , 4 are based on the remaining teams ranking.

Will this rule remain from 24-25 onwards? Or will it be based fully on teams ranking?

CL winner will be at pot 1 and all rest clubs based on their ranking

[Sagy]

There is a need for #4, to have more equal strentgh schedules, since coefficients alone is a weak indicator of strength.

Not sure how that will help, pot 1 will have one French team, it is highly likely that the “weakest” team in pot 1 will be English or Spanish. It is also likely that at any other pot, the English and Spanish teams are going to be “stronger” than the French team in the same pot. Let’s follow your logic:
1) I get the weakest pot 1 (not French) and you got PSG
2) It’s unlikely that there will be French teams in pot 2
3) In pots 3, where your point is probably most critical, you get to avoid a French team that is likely to be weaker than the English or Spanish team that I will avoid.

You ended up getting a stronger pot 1 and a stronger pot 3 opponents because of this restriction.

Remember, in every pot, two teams will get PSG and two teams will get the weakest pot 1 team. The above scenario is guaranteed to occur multiple times.

Yes, there are counter examples, that just goes to show that it’s the luck of the draw. Artificial restrictions will not address the real risk of an unbalanced strength of opponents.

On average it still balances the draw.

I can understand why someone might think that, is there any data to support such a claim?

[amirbachar]

Not sure how that will help, pot 1 will have one French team, it is highly likely that the “weakest” team in pot 1 will be English or Spanish. It is also likely that at any other pot, the English and Spanish teams are going to be “stronger” than the French team in the same pot. Let’s follow your logic:
1) I get the weakest pot 1 (not French) and you got PSG
2) It’s unlikely that there will be French teams in pot 2
3) In pots 3, where your point is probably most critical, you get to avoid a French team that is likely to be weaker than the English or Spanish team that I will avoid.

You ended up getting a stronger pot 1 and a stronger pot 3 opponents because of this restriction.

Remember, in every pot, two teams will get PSG and two teams will get the weakest pot 1 team. The above scenario is guaranteed to occur multiple times.

Yes, there are counter examples, that just goes to show that it’s the luck of the draw. Artificial restrictions will not address the real risk of an unbalanced strength of opponents.

On average it still balances the draw.

I can understand why someone might think that, is there any data to support such a claim?

Not a full simulation, but you can see the correlation between Elo Ratings and Country of CL Participants:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... XcSfrTFvk/

[Sagy]

On average it still balances the draw.

I can understand why someone might think that, is there any data to support such a claim?

Not a full simulation, but you can see the correlation between Elo Ratings and Country of CL Participants:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... XcSfrTFvk/

I must be missing something.

Not clear to me at all how “the correlation between Elo Ratings and Country of CL Participants“ supports the claim that adding an opponent country restrictions would “On average it still balances the draw”.

There is at least one example (France next year) in which this restriction is likely to cause at least 8 teams to have a tougher schedule compared to not having this restriction. This also means that at least 8 teams are likely to have an easier schedule if this restriction is in place.

[amirbachar]

I can understand why someone might think that, is there any data to support such a claim?

Not a full simulation, but you can see the correlation between Elo Ratings and Country of CL Participants:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... XcSfrTFvk/

I must be missing something.

Not clear to me at all how “the correlation between Elo Ratings and Country of CL Participants“ supports the claim that adding an opponent country restrictions would “On average it still balances the draw”.

There is at least one example (France next year) in which this restriction is likely to cause at least 8 teams to have a tougher schedule compared to not having this restriction. This also means that at least 8 teams are likely to have an easier schedule if this restriction is in place.

Example is not an average, For the teams that recieves PSG from Pot 1 the restriction won't matter much, but for the teams that receives Man. City it will help.
I'll simulate it before the next season to prove it...

[Sagy]

Not a full simulation, but you can see the correlation between Elo Ratings and Country of CL Participants:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... XcSfrTFvk/

I must be missing something.

Not clear to me at all how “the correlation between Elo Ratings and Country of CL Participants“ supports the claim that adding an opponent country restrictions would “On average it still balances the draw”.

There is at least one example (France next year) in which this restriction is likely to cause at least 8 teams to have a tougher schedule compared to not having this restriction. This also means that at least 8 teams are likely to have an easier schedule if this restriction is in place.

Example is not an average, For the teams that recieves PSG from Pot 1 the restriction won't matter much, but for the teams that receives Man. City it will help.
I'll simulate it before the next season to prove it...

Looking forward to seeing the simulation.

Two points:
1) I never claimed that an “Example is an average”.
2) Where we have a difference of opinion is “For the teams that recieves PSG from Pot 1 the restriction won't matter much”. In my opinion, and based on the teams France is likely to send to the UCL, a team that will draw PSG (not the weakest Pot 1 team) will get tougher teams from Pot 3 if this restriction is in place.