New Formats Post 2024-

[Tazmania]

As @amenina would say, we have to await the publication of the competition regulations!

They are usually published in the Spring if I'm not mistaken.

[perica]

I don't have any official info but most likely TB rules will remain same without H2H.

Won't H2H be used for teams that have played each other?

Most likely no since they only play one match at the home of one of the teams, so using H2H would be unfair.

When uefa cup was played in single round-robin, 2004-08, total goal difference was used as tie-break criteria rather than h2h

[offside]

@Jackson Harrison
Head to head is an excellent tiebreaker when all the clubs meet each other club twice, home and away. In this new format not only they won't meet twice, but also not every club meet all the others. Generically speaking, goal difference is not a great tiebreaker, because in the last matches there are clubs that can score many goals against clubs that have nothing to play for, but under this new format it would surely work better than head to head.

[Tazmania]

I think GD is superior to H2H because the latter can turn games on the last MD into dead-rubbers which is less likely with GD.

[offside]

I think GD is superior to H2H because the latter can turn games on the last MD into dead-rubbers which is less likely with GD.

World is a nice place also because people has different opinions.

[diyx]

I think GD is superior to H2H because the latter can turn games on the last MD into dead-rubbers which is less likely with GD.

World is a nice place also because people has different opinions.

I also totally agree with Tazmania. Many last matchdays of the Euros or the Champions League are boring because of H2H. The worst example was Euro 2008, where all group winners were already determined after matchday 2, 3 out of 4 because of H2H.

This also leads to many games were only one team has something to play for, thus giving them an unfair advantage because their opponent only fields a B-team.

[Sagy]

While we can argue if H2H or GD is a better tie breaker, neither should be used in the UEFA “Swiss system” league table. Teams will play different opponents and are unlikely to play each other. Worse, some team will get a home game in the last two game days vs the worst team with an opportunity to score a large number of goals vs a bad team that has already been eliminated.

There is also a high likelihood of multiple teams (certainty of at least 2 teams) finishing with the same number of points (there are 36 teams and only 24 or 18 points that can be collected).

In my view using something like Strength of Schedule (my friends and I refer to it as COW - Cumulative Opponents Wins) is the best approach for such a system. If teams are still tied, the next tiebreaker can be to use just the away games opponents). This means that teams will be rewarded for playing a tougher schedule. The third tiebreaker, in my view, should be discipline points, if needed we can use RCs next. If still tied, look for the best ranked team that one of the tied teams beat.

[diyx]

While we can argue if H2H or GD is a better tie breaker, neither should be used in the UEFA “Swiss system” league table. Teams will play different opponents and are unlikely to play each other.

I agree, I would use strength of opponents as first tie breaker, but then GD as second.

[Diouf]

Although the Champions League draw has become one of the showpiece events of the competition, Uefa modelling showed that a straight draw for who plays who in the opening stage would take up to four hours. It will instead by a hybrid system, with some of it digital and the rest manual, overseen by firms such as Ernst and Young. The exact process is still being discussed.

I have always just figured they will draw teams to places in a matrix. With a computer deciding when a team is drawn whether they can go to the first number in the matrix, otherwise they will go to the next possible place. Don't know if that's what they call a hybrid system here.

The draw will be done away with completely for the knock-out stage, in part to add further incentives to where you finish in the opening league. A tennis-style seeding system will be introduced rather than an open draw. Uefa had gone back and forth in discussions on this, and general secretary Theodore Theodiridis even raised the idea of qualified teams getting choices in order of seeding in a live TV event. The first-place club, as an example, could feasibly have 30 seconds to pick from the other 15 teams. This was dismissed by other members of the discussion. A tennis-style system has instead been settled on, which could lead to further criticisms of the competition being “gerrymandered” towards the biggest clubs.

Could actually have been an interesting idea with teams choosing their own opponents, but I understand the arguments again. Might look a bit too "mean" towards the clubs being picked first. And also maybe would have hurt some on paper small clubs, who could have been chosen first despite finishing maybe 18th, if the 9th placed team figured they would be the best side to meet. I don't understand why the article says that the chosen tennis-style system would be more gerrymandered towards the bigger clubs.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 11342.html

[Diouf]

Dale Johnson from ESPN with a bit more details.
In the description below it sounds like when a team is drawn, you know immediatedly all their eight games. Whereas I would have thought the first team drawn would be to just a slot with games against unfilled slots. The latter would be more "draw-like". Whereas in the scenario described below, you could basically have done all the pairings in advance and then it's just published when a team is drawn. Sounds quite weird, but maybe it's easier.

It means the only manual aspect will be the ceremonial part of choosing the team whose fixtures are to be decided. The computer will then allocate that team's opponents automatically from all four pots, and decide which fixtures are home and away.

For instance, if pot one features: Manchester City, Sevilla, Barcelona, Napoli, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica, Feyenoord, Real Madrid

UEFA will only draw out one team, such as Barcelona. The fixtures would then be displayed one by one by computer draw.

This part with the bracket was also known since the slides with the bracket came out long time ago. I guess the only interesting thing is whether there is a recalculation or if teams take over the seeding in the second draw. Like if the 23th seed beat the 9th seed, will they be one of the two bottom teams for the second draw and face 1/2 or will they be the new 9th seed, and face 7/8.

It was also confirmed that there would be two, limited knockout-round draws -- one at the end of the league phase at the end of January, and another at the end of February for the round of 16. However, this would only decide which side of the bracket teams fall on as it will be largely pre-determined by positions in the league phase. There will be no draw for the quarterfinals and semifinals, which will already be set in the bracket

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/ ... ext-season

[Jackson Harrison]

Although the Champions League draw has become one of the showpiece events of the competition, Uefa modelling showed that a straight draw for who plays who in the opening stage would take up to four hours. It will instead by a hybrid system, with some of it digital and the rest manual, overseen by firms such as Ernst and Young. The exact process is still being discussed.

I have always just figured they will draw teams to places in a matrix. With a computer deciding when a team is drawn whether they can go to the first number in the matrix, otherwise they will go to the next possible place. Don't know if that's what they call a hybrid system here.

The draw will be done away with completely for the knock-out stage, in part to add further incentives to where you finish in the opening league. A tennis-style seeding system will be introduced rather than an open draw. Uefa had gone back and forth in discussions on this, and general secretary Theodore Theodiridis even raised the idea of qualified teams getting choices in order of seeding in a live TV event. The first-place club, as an example, could feasibly have 30 seconds to pick from the other 15 teams. This was dismissed by other members of the discussion. A tennis-style system has instead been settled on, which could lead to further criticisms of the competition being “gerrymandered” towards the biggest clubs.

Could actually have been an interesting idea with teams choosing their own opponents, but I understand the arguments again. Might look a bit too "mean" towards the clubs being picked first. And also maybe would have hurt some on paper small clubs, who could have been chosen first despite finishing maybe 18th, if the 9th placed team figured they would be the best side to meet. I don't understand why the article says that the chosen tennis-style system would be more gerrymandered towards the bigger clubs.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 11342.html

There will be a draw for the KO stage!

[elkjiaer is back]

The draw procedure for the group stage is much more complicated than it used to be.
1) teams from same country can’t be paired ( same as before )
2) teams must play 1 home and 1 away game against each opponent from each pot
3 most likely no reverse fixtures are allowed ( where A plays B and then B plays A)
4) we don’t know if a team can be paired with multiple opponents from the same country or not

Even when you are done with all fixtures then there are many questions marks regarding calendar
1) are we enforcing teams to alternate between home and away matches ?
2) given 9 games between opponents from the same pot ( for all 4 pots ) are they then allocated equally along the 8 match days ? Then you should also do the same with all the 18 x 6 games for the matches involving teams from different pots
Based on my calculations the full draw procedure would take 2.5 hours only to draw all fixtures
I have read online that instead they will draw one team at random and then select all 8 opponents . This means the still need to draw at least 18 teams ( remember if A plays B then B plays away to A ) and for each one all opponents
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

[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.

[FEPG]

I'm glad they didn't opt for a predetermined schedule or something like the Champions Hockey League has. However, using the computer to draw the opponents is a bit cheesy. They could have at least used balls to draw the initial seed of the RNG so that the draw could be transparent and reproducible to silence the tinfoil hat brigade.

[diyx]

…
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.

I also believe #4 is simply not possible for CL. Up to 24 out of 36 teams are from only 5 countries, so I don't see how it would be possible for none of the other teams to not meet teams from one country twice.

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.