UEFA’S Champions League “League Phase” format needs tweaking

UEFA debuted the new Champions League Phase this season, promising more stakes, bigger games and drama. Some delivered, and some had the old familiar feeling of what you’d expect from the original group stage format.

Bigger games took place with more opportunities for teams you wouldn’t expect to qualify within the original format. So, did it deliver?

Well, one of the first promises was bigger games; you saw Manchester City take on PSG, not to mention repeats of the Champions League finals in 2018, 2019, and 2020. So yeah, what UEFA advertised was delivered, and you got to see more of these matches, which had implications for how a team would finish at the end of the league phase.

What can also be agreed is that the league phase has given teams such as Celtic a chance; in the past, it would have been more than likely that a team such as Celtic would have dropped to the bottom of the group. Celtic FC would play teams more akin to them and benefitted from being home and away.

Seven teams fought on the final Matchday to finish in eighth place and avoid an extra set of games. Given that nobody is safe, even teams such as Bayern Munich didn’t have an easy MD8, as they were right in the mix for eighth place.

You had teams checking on their phones at FT to see where they finished and if they did enough to make it through; Villa, Atalanta, Monaco and Brest benefited from this format significantly, aside from PSG.

But Lille, Brest, and Monaco won enough games to make it through. So, for those teams you’d expect to finish third or fourth in the old format, it’s worked out: They’ll either get an extra set of games or, in Lille’s case, make it into the round of 16. The league phase has given those French sides a much needed financial boost.

As much as there were positives, a team such as Manchester City can still progress to the next phase despite winning only three of their fixtures. There is an argument that expanding teams was unnecessary, with a few teams, such as Young Boys BSC, guaranteed to finish bottom after at least three Match days.

That sentiment of having every game isn’t going to be there with the extra teams added in due to the 36 team format because they cannot compete at the same level as some of the other teams above them.

The competition gets too long afterwards and eventually, you get meaningless games; Liverpool had first place locked down following the first three Matchdays.

They guaranteed their spot in January and had pointless games for another few matchdays before officially confirming it. There’s no drama in the top four because they can all play it safe; with them knowing they did the job and got to the round of 16, teams can play reduced squads and rotate squads ahead of more significant games.

Albeit you would have the same in the group stages. However, in some cases you would have three teams battling for the two spots that would get them into the round of 16.

The current format needs some tweaking because getting to the competition’s knockout stages feels too much of a drag. The compromise is at least one-off ties in the playoffs. Still, with that, you have to figure out a way to please all the teams who disagree, with some seeing it as an unfair advantage.

The format is promising but needs some tweaks because it feels too long and is just pulling along towards the knockout stages. Thirty-six teams are too many, and add dead rubber. If UEFA wants more drama, limit it to 32 teams and have the first knockout round be one-off games.

The current format can create final-day drama, as seen on MD8, but it has too many meaningless matches and an unnecessary eight-matchday format.