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Right, I’ve got a bit of time this morning, so I’ll carry on from the discussion with CTIDHants in ‘The Sack Race’ thread. Just to say, I’m not 100% certain about this, but this is how I think the CL Group Stage will work next season.

- There are 36 teams, drawn into 9 pots.
- Each team will play 2 teams from each pot (1 home, 1 away)
- Pots are decided purely on the basis of coefficients, with the exception of CL and EL winners (who go in Pot 1), and possibly teams who enter via qualifying (although I’m not sure about this, and if so, how it’s done).

Teams are then ‘ranked’ within pots. I’m not sure if this is based on coefficients, too, or not. HOWEVER, there can also be some ‘fiddling’ of the pot rankings by UEFA, to ensure that teams don’t play against teams from their own country (except in extreme scenarios). Teams are likely to play the team ranked directly above them in each pot at home, and below them away. So, for example, if we’re ranked 3rd in pot 1, we’re likely to play teams ranked 2nd in pots 1-4 at home, and 4th in pots 1-4 away.

The above-mentioned ‘fiddling’ may well be important this year, because *if* Bayern Leverkusen win the Europa League, they will be in Pot 1, alongside 3 other German clubs there on the basis of coefficient (Bayern, Dortmund and Leipzig). This will mean that those 4 clubs will have to be ‘ranked’ so that they don’t play each other. If Bayern win the CL, they’ll almost certainly be ranked 1, 3, 5 and 7, or 1, 4, 6, and 8, while if they lose, they’ll almost certainly be 2, 4, 6 and 8. As a result, it’s highly likely that we’ll be drawn to face a German club in both the home and away draws for Pot 1.

Likewise, Pot 2 could end up having 4 Italian teams in it. In this event, we’ll play at least one Italian team (either home or away), but most likely 2. Although unlikely, France could also end up with 3 teams in Pot 4. In such a scenario, we’d also be likely to play 1 French team, either home or away (and almost certain to do so if Villa also end up in Pot 4). That would leave the nationalities of 5 of the 8 teams we play as a foregone conclusion.

Qualifying ends on 28 August, and the draw is done on 29 August. Due to the new format, there won’t really be a ‘draw’, but rather a hashing-out of a grid that determines who plays who (as an example, see the ‘grid’ on this Wikipedia page for the European Ice Hockey League, which applies a similar format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%8 ... key_League), where it would be sensible for the draw to be released all at once, but I have a suspicion UEFA will try to make a fanfare of it and drag out the event for excitement and sponsorship purposes.

*EDIT*: EL winners DO NOT automatically go into Pot 1. Instead, a Leverkusen win would push them over the line for Pot 1 in terms of coefficient points, seeing them overtake Barca, who would then end up in Pot 2.

Nice one for this

This looks to be wide open to WAFFA fiddling early doors. Would be great to win this in Munich though - they won't like that at all

Also, for fixture dates:

It seems the first round of fixtures will be played on the Tues, Weds and Thurs (17-19 Sept), while all games in the final round will be played simultaneously (Weds 29 Jan). My guess is that this will change at some point down the line (possibly next season, if they can), as having 18 matches played simultaneously is bad for business (as well as logistics), and will mess up viewership figures and therefore sponsor money. However, there might also be a fair few dead rubbers in that round, as I doubt UEFA would schedule Pot 1 v. Pot 1 clashes in it, due to the aforementioned TV scheduling.

salford city wrote:This looks to be wide open to WAFFA fiddling early doors. Would be great to win this in Munich though - they won't like that at all

Definitely. With the final round being 18 games at the same time in late January, they'll almost certainly want teams in the GMT+2 and beyond time zones to be playing away in it. I guess the final round will be Pot 1 v. Pot 4 matches, but that will detract from viewership of the 'big' teams, because the Pot 2 v. Pot 3 games will (primarily) be the ones with something riding on them.

The draw itself should be relatively straightforward: once all teams have qualified, there will only be a finite number of permutations of the fixtures. As I said above, we're pretty likely to play 2 German, 2 Italian and 1 French teams (as things stand, there's maybe a 30% chance of us playing all 5 of them, and an 80%+ chance of us playing 4 of the 5). The thing is, the CL Draw is a big back-rubbing event, where UEFA bigwigs get gifted Rolexes and whatnot, so they need it to maintain some 'drama' to maintain its relevance as an event. That's where the uncertainty with all of this stems from, because it's quite possible for some statistician (like Bert on the UEFA coefficient page) to be able to work out the draw (or the 5 or 6 potential draws) and put it/them online before UEFA's 'big reveal'.

Seems you need to be quite intelligent to understand how it works.

Seems UEFA are simply creating it more difficult to make it easier to get the outcomes they desire

A simple bag with balls in it would do the job

nottsblue wrote:Seems you need to be quite intelligent to understand how it works.

Seems UEFA are simply creating it more difficult to make it easier to get the outcomes they desire

A simple bag with balls in it would do the job

8 of the 9 teams in Pot 1 are already confirmed. It's just their order that isn't, and this largely depends on whether Bayern win the CL and/or Leverkusen win the EL.

The top 3 will be Real, Bayern, Us, with us 2nd, the CL winners 1st, and the other team 3rd.

4th-8th should be PSG, Liverpool, Inter, Dortmund and Leipzig (in that order). HOWEVER, Dortmund and Leipzig can't have consecutive rankings, so Dortmund have to swap places with Inter.

BUT, if Leverkusen win the EL, they'll also be in Pot 1, meaning ranks 7-9 will be German teams, which is where it gets messy. All teams have to be shuffled, meaning it would be:

4. PSG
5. Dortmund
6. Liverpool
7. Leipzig
8. Inter
9. Leverkusen

All nice and simple. Alas, there's yet another twist: If Bayern win the CL, they'll be Rank 1 of Pot 1, and therefore Leverkusen can't be Rank 9, so the entire Pot 1 would be:
1. Bayern
2. Us
3. Real
4. Dortmund
5. PSG
6. Leipzig
7. Liverpool
8. Leverkusen
9. Inter

So, looking at that, scratch my initial prediction. Whichever way the CL final goes, if the CL strictly follows the ice hockey system, we'll be playing Bayern and Real (one home, one away) in the groups (and PSG will be playing Dortmund somewhere) however things pan out. Liverpool will be a dead cert to play 2 German clubs. In Pot 2, Italian clubs won't be able to occupy ranking numbers either side of Inter (who will be 7th, 8th or 9th), or numbers consecutive to one another. So, if Inter are ranked 9th in Pot 1, no Italian club can be ranked 8th or 1st in Pot 2. That means that - if there were 4 Italian clubs in the pot - they'd have to be ranked 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th, to keep them apart from Inter, with the other teams being slotted in around them in terms of coefficient.

Like I said, it's going to be easy for a statistician to predict the draw once the qualifiers are done. It's basically going to be a bit like sudoko, working out where teams need to slot in by a process of elimination. That's unless UEFA reveal another twist in the process.

Bayern are not winning anything this season

zuricity wrote:Bayern are not winning anything this season

Poor Harry

Thanks Blue in Bosnia. I still don’t understand it. Why would we play against Real and Bayern before the knock out rounds?

blues2win wrote:Thanks Blue in Bosnia. I still don’t understand it. Why would we play against Real and Bayern before the knock out rounds?

As PP says, money.

We play 2 teams from each pot. Each pot has ranks from 1-9. We will (if UEFA follow the ice hockey setup I've mentioned) play the clubs either side of us in the rankings from each pot. As we'll be ranked #2 (behind the CL winners), we'd play Ranks 1 and 3 from each of Pots 1-4.

Now, from a tactical perspective, these 'high ranking' games may actually be pretty uncompetitive. The top 24 of the 36-team league progress (1-8 direct to the last 16, 9 to 24 to the playoff). Realistically, 14 points from 8 games would see a team through to the playoff (with 11 or 12 being a more likely minimum threshold), so teams will have to weigh up whether to go full throttle for a top 8 position, or play the kids against the other Pot 1 teams, to set themselves up for an extra 2 games in a playoff against the likes of Copenhagen. I guess TV/prize money may well have an influence on this, too.

Why should it be the ice hockey method? Shouldn’t Number one play at least one from the lowest number in the group and so on. Like the Football play offs?

blues2win wrote:Why should it be the ice hockey method? Shouldn’t Number one play at least one from the lowest number in the group and so on. Like the Football play offs?

That would make sense to me, too. However, with 4 German teams in Pot 1, there's a limited number of permutations, unless UEFA want to subjectively hand-pick games to ensure certain teams get through, or that the ties bring in sufficient viewer numbers.

I don’t understand how four German teams can be in pot one. Are all the pots equalised now ie no pot for League Champions?

blues2win wrote:I don’t understand how four German teams can be in pot one. Are all the pots equalised now ie no pot for League Champions?

No, as said above, it's on the basis of coefficients only, except for CL winners.

I have to say the whole thing is ridiculous but it is what it is.