Starting this season, the Champions League will be played in a new preliminary round format. This includes a league system: This increases the number of attractive duels, but also the number of matches.
This Tuesday the time has come: the Champions League preliminary round starts in a new format. We’ll tell you what that means.
The preliminary round becomes the league
The group phase will be completely abolished. Instead of eight groups of four with 32 teams, the preliminary round will be played in a league system with 36 teams. However, not everyone will play against everyone else; instead, the teams will be drawn against eight opponents, against whom they will play four home and four away games. This increases the number of games for each team in the preliminary round to eight. Previously, each team only played against the three group opponents in home and away games.
For the draw, the clubs were divided into four pots. The first pot consisted of the defending champions and the champions of the top eight leagues, while pots two to four were filled – as before – in descending order according to the UEFA coefficient list. Each team was assigned two opponents from each pot (one home and one away game from each pot). Teams from the same association do not play against each other.
The dates for the preliminary round matches extend from September to January. Here too, a change is planned: each of the three European cup competitions (Champions League, Europa League, Conference League) will have a week to itself, during which the other two competitions will have a break. This means that there will be ten European cup weeks in the preliminary round. That is four more than before.
Who will qualify for the round of 16 of the Champions League?
The first eight teams in the preliminary round table qualify directly. The other eight places will be decided in an extra play-off round – and this is also new. Places nine to sixteen will play against places 17 to 24. The clubs in places nine to 16 will play an away game first. The clubs that finished in places 25 to 26 are completely eliminated.
What does the knockout phase look like?
Once the round of 16 is complete, the competition continues as usual in a knockout system with home and away matches. However, there is also a change planned here: there is a fixed tournament tree. The path is therefore fixed up to the final, so draws are avoided in the knockout round. The 24 teams that have made it to the knockout round or the play-off phase are paired up. The first in the table with the second-placed team, the third with the fourth and so on. These pairs are then distributed across the different halves of the tournament, so that the first in the table can meet the second-placed team in the final at the earliest. From the play-offs for the round of 16 onwards, clubs from the same league can meet each other.
Otherwise everything stays the same. Except for the final, the knockout round will be played in home and away matches, but every two weeks. Previously, there were three weeks between the knockout rounds.
Sources: “”, “”, .
Source: Stern
I am Pierce Boyd, a driven and ambitious professional working in the news industry. I have been writing for 24 Hours Worlds for over five years, specializing in sports section coverage. During my tenure at the publication, I have built an impressive portfolio of articles that has earned me a reputation as an experienced journalist and content creator.
