Draw System for League Phases of European Cups 2024 onwards

[fabiomh]

Question:
Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine, a Milan fan, and he was very happy that Milan is now in pot 2, after Rangers were eliminated in CLQ3. He says the draw will be "better" for his team.
In my opinion nothing really changed, his team still has to draw 2 teams from each pot. As a matter of fact it doesn't really matter where a team is, they still gotta draw 2 from each pot.
Am I right?

I agree with you.
Until the last season, belonging to Pot2 vs Pot3 was a great difference/advantage.
From the current season, belonging Pot2 vs Pot3, there is no relevant advantage/difference.

[elkjiaer is back]

https://julienguyon.pythonanywhere.com/uefa_app/

If you want to play with a simulator for the Champions League stage. There is also a paper explaining all formalities and also pros and cons of performing the draw this way compared to using a pre-determined schedule

[fabiomh]

LEVERKUSEN WILL LIKELY MEET 2 ITALIAN TEAMS IN POT1/POT2 (Inter, Juve, Atalanta, Milan).

In principles, each team has probability 25% (2/8) to meet any team of the same pot, and probability 22% (2/9) to meet any team of other pots.
This probability can change depending on the country constraints (weak constraints to be honest).

For example Leverkusen (pot 2) cannot meet the three German teams of Pot 1, so their opponents need to be choosen between the other six teams (2 Eng, 2 Esp, 1 Ita, 1 Fra), and the related probability increases.
This impact one each other with the fact that there are 3 Italians in the Pot2, so Inter (Pot1) can choose 2 out of 6 teams of Pot2 (including Leverkusen). So probability of Inter-Leverkusen increases furthermore.
In addition any of the three Italians of Pot2 cannot meet the other two, they will have their two opponents between the other 6 teams (including Leverkusen); so their probability to meet Leverkusen increase again.

Definitively probability Leverkusen will meet one or two Italian teams among Inter, Milan, Juve, Atalanta (Pot1 + Pot2) is really high.
Three out of 4 should be avoided by the weak constraints, but it cannot be excluded.
The most likely combination is metting two Italians.

Most likely Leverkusen opponents:
Pot1: Inter (39%), PSG (38%), Real M., Barca (30%), ManCity, Liverpool (29%), German derby low probability
Pot2: Atalanta, Juventus, Milan (36% each - should be max two of them), Brugge 28%, ...

[FEPG]

https://julienguyon.pythonanywhere.com/uefa_app/

If you want to play with a simulator for the Champions League stage. There is also a paper explaining all formalities and also pros and cons of performing the draw this way compared to using a pre-determined schedule

Nice read (link to the paper). Essentially, they've outlined my entire journey from last year in building my own simulator. However, when I initially opted for a schedule-first approach, I aimed for a completely random schedule rather than a predetermined one.

I appreciate their arguments for improved scheduling, such as limiting the number of games from a single pot combination & using a single cycle for intra-pot matches instead of multiple isolated cycles. However, I doubt UEFA will adopt these constraints, as their regulations don't seem to mention them. A single cycle is probably easier to schedule, though this would need further verification. They mention it in Method 1, but it could also be applied to Method 2.

Their simulator aligns more closely with the procedure, but mine also generates a schedule, albeit very slowly at the moment.

[fabiomh]

LEVERKUSEN WILL LIKELY MEET 2 ITALIAN TEAMS IN POT1/POT2 (Inter, Juve, Atalanta, Milan).

In principles, each team has probability 25% (2/8) to meet any team of the same pot, and probability 22% (2/9) to meet any team of other pots.
This probability can change depending on the country constraints (weak constraints to be honest).

For example Leverkusen (pot 2) cannot meet the three German teams of Pot 1, so their opponents need to be choosen between the other six teams (2 Eng, 2 Esp, 1 Ita, 1 Fra), and the related probability increases.
This impact one each other with the fact that there are 3 Italians in the Pot2, so Inter (Pot1) can choose 2 out of 6 teams of Pot2 (including Leverkusen). So probability of Inter-Leverkusen increases furthermore.
In addition any of the three Italians of Pot2 cannot meet the other two, they will have their two opponents between the other 6 teams (including Leverkusen); so their probability to meet Leverkusen increase again.

Definitively probability Leverkusen will meet one or two Italian teams among Inter, Milan, Juve, Atalanta (Pot1 + Pot2) is really high.
Three out of 4 should be avoided by the weak constraints, but it cannot be excluded.
The most likely combination is metting two Italians.

Most likely Leverkusen opponents:
Pot1: Inter (39%), PSG (38%), Real M., Barca (30%), ManCity, Liverpool (29%), German derby low probability
Pot2: Atalanta, Juventus, Milan (36% each - should be max two of them), Brugge 28%, ...

LEVERKUSEN vs INTER and MILAN

[ngfsmg]

Just a small mistake @bert.kassies , today and tomorrow are the league phase draws, and not the group stage draws as you have on the calendar

[elkjiaer is back]

Beside the actual result of the draw , what do you all think about it ?
From my side it felt very much “ soulless “ and didn’t give me any of the emotions and excitement of the previous one.
I felt I barely had time to digest the fixtures , plus having a computer performing the drawing as a black box , although necessary , was quite weird .

[FEPG]

plus having a computer performing the drawing as a black box , although necessary , was quite weird .

I wrote a post about using a deterministic PRNG to generate the draw, which can be reproduced. The main constraint was time, so they opted to use a computer. What you could do is draw a seed (a large number) using balls, and after that, instead of drawing more balls, you'd just use the modulo operation on the next pseudo-random number you generate.

[bert.kassies]

Just a small mistake @bert.kassies , today and tomorrow are the league phase draws, and not the group stage draws as you have on the calendar

Thanks for feedback

[SimonB]

Beside the actual result of the draw , what do you all think about it ?
From my side it felt very much “ soulless “ and didn’t give me any of the emotions and excitement of the previous one.
I felt I barely had time to digest the fixtures , plus having a computer performing the drawing as a black box , although necessary , was quite weird .

Have to agree, but then it was to be expected I suppose. One thing they possibly could have done is to briefly show a list of the available options that the computer could select from before showing the selected ones. It would have taken a little longer, but then they show a lot of other stuff that doesn't really need to be done at the ceremony, so they could have cut some of that out.

[bert.kassies]

Beside the actual result of the draw , what do you all think about it ?
From my side it felt very much “ soulless “ and didn’t give me any of the emotions and excitement of the previous one.
I felt I barely had time to digest the fixtures , plus having a computer performing the drawing as a black box , although necessary , was quite weird .

Have to agree, but then it was to be expected I suppose. One thing they possibly could have done is to briefly show a list of the available options that the computer could select from before showing the selected ones. It would have taken a little longer, but then they show a lot of other stuff that doesn't really need to be done at the ceremony, so they could have cut some of that out.

And skip the push of the button, spares time and one less person bored.

[OlliWender]

Beside the actual result of the draw , what do you all think about it ?
From my side it felt very much “ soulless “ and didn’t give me any of the emotions and excitement of the previous one.
I felt I barely had time to digest the fixtures , plus having a computer performing the drawing as a black box , although necessary , was quite weird .

Have to agree, but then it was to be expected I suppose. One thing they possibly could have done is to briefly show a list of the available options that the computer could select from before showing the selected ones. It would have taken a little longer, but then they show a lot of other stuff that doesn't really need to be done at the ceremony, so they could have cut some of that out.

And skip the push of the button, spares time and one less person bored.

And don't invite a guy who has no stakes in the competition anymore like Ronaldo, who is standing there the whole time with one hand in his pocket, flaunting his indifference.

[diyx]

plus having a computer performing the drawing as a black box , although necessary , was quite weird .

I wrote a post about using a deterministic PRNG to generate the draw, which can be reproduced. The main constraint was time, so they opted to use a computer. What you could do is draw a seed (a large number) using balls, and after that, instead of drawing more balls, you'd just use the modulo operation on the next pseudo-random number you generate.

I like the idea. On top, they should make the source code public to prove that the draw isn't manipulated.

However, they will not do it because it's too difficult to explain to the majority of viewers.

[dnina10]

I stand by my stance from when I initially saw the draw regulations. UEFA messed this one up. They should have created a master schedule like all major tournaments do, and draw the teams into the master schedule. The randomness of the draw is not a good look. Like Elkjaer said, this felt rather soulless in the end, granted, neither of my teams were involved, but it still felt uneventful

[eye]

Such draws are great TV shows because all fans are watching having the agony for a good draw for the club they support. I don't think it happened at this draw. For a Manchester City fan the draw ended just 1 min after it begun since it was the first drawn club.

As I have posted earlier at this topic the draw should be totally manually. In order to safe time they only need to draw the away (or the home) club for each tie so they will only draw 144 balls. If they pick one opponent each time for every club till all clubs have 1 opponent and then continue with drawing another opponent for every club fans will be watching till the end.

Since computer was drawing randomly the opponents for each club why didn't they just press once the buttom so computer would perform the whole draw at once and they were just drawing balls. It doesn't really make any sense to me.