As star players approach the new Champions League season this week, there are still many who don’t get the new format. Uefa even joked about it in its promotional video at the draw. The players are far from alone in this, with plenty of fans and even club executives having the same discussion.
It could be argued this is a real problem for the basic functioning of a competition, not to mention how it represents the needless complication of a sport that is historically popular due to its simplicity. There is still hope within Uefa that everyone will understand once the reality of the games and the table take shape in front of their eyes. That’s quite a rare justification but then, this whole change represents quite a leap. It also represents the start of an era where our understanding and expectations of how football works will be completely scrambled.
The new Champions League is only the first step in a cycle that will see changes to most major parts of the calendar. The structural and psychological architecture of the game is being rearranged. The World Cup is going in a similar direction, by expanding to 48 teams, at the same time as Fifa is introducing a new expanded Club World Cup. The very fact the European season runs right through the “winter break” of January is already a major difference.
In the case of the Champions League’s specific structure, a classic format of eight groups of four with the top two going through is now ending after 25 years. Despite its simplicity, the format had become predictable in recent years and lost some of its magic. It is being replaced by something that has never been seen in elite football before, which is 36 teams all put into one giant table but where each club only has eight fixtures to try and reach the top 24 places. A super league, if you will.
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