The 2024-2025 season will see the next historic change to the UEFA Champions League. After a period of the tournament taking place with the format of... 2 group stages, then shortened to 1 group stage, starting from this season, there will be no more group stage.
UEFA has made a major decision - in its response to the challenge from the long-defunct European Super League - by increasing the number of teams from 32 to 36 and scrapping the group stage to play in a "league" format.
However, not all 36 teams will face each other, each team will only play against 7 other teams. But the rankings will be calculated together, to then determine the top 8 teams to get direct tickets to the round of 16.
Next, the teams ranked from 9th to 24th will play a play-off to compete for the remaining 8 tickets. For the teams ranked 25th to 36th, they will have to say goodbye to the European Cup, with no more tickets to the Europa League.
If the group stage has the difficulty of the group stage, the league format also has its own harshness. When there is no longer a home and away format, but each team has 4 home matches and 4 away matches arranged randomly (as the draw showed), the method of determining teams with equal points no longer prioritizes the head-to-head coefficient.
Instead, goal difference, goals scored, away goals, wins, away wins are the top criteria for determination.
And if it is still not possible to determine which team is ranked higher, UEFA also has other criteria such as: Higher number of points won by opponents in the league round; Higher overall goal difference of opponents in the league round; Higher number of goals scored by opponents in the same league round; Lower total disciplinary points (direct red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, sending off for 2 yellow cards in one match = 3 points).
And finally the club coefficient in the UEFA rankings.
It can be seen that some big teams will be somewhat disadvantaged if they have to compare the secondary goal difference, when they have to go through many "big battles". For example, Paris St Germain, they have to play Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, Arsenal. Or Real Madrid plays Dortmund, AC Milan, Liverpool...
Of course, many big matches will make fans feel more excited in each round, with each round of 18 matches, stretching from Tuesday night to early Thursday morning (Vietnam time).
In the opening round, football fans were directed to Milan, where the first big match between AC Milan and Liverpool took place. Although they had played friendly matches and met in the Champions League, every time these two names were placed next to each other, people would only remember the 2005 final with the incredible comeback of The Kop.
While Milan prepared for this match with a 4-0 win over Venezia, Liverpool surprisingly lost at home to Nottingham Forest last weekend.
One day later, another England-Italy confrontation became the focus, when Man City hosted Inter Milan - a reenactment of the 2022-2023 season final in which The Citizens won 1-0 to be crowned.
In this match, the preparation was the opposite, Man City won while Inter struggled to earn 1 point at Monza stadium.
Although not as hot, the England - Italy confrontation, Arsenal's visit to Atalanta - the reigning Europa League champion, is also very interesting.
Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG are expected to have 3 points on the opening day, while Barcelona will meet AS Monaco - the team that beat them 3-0 in the Joan Gamper Cup match last summer...
