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New Champions League format: League phase hits the mark

More dynamic, more unpredictable and more top contests – the most radical re-working of the UEFA Champions League in 25 years has delivered on its promise to invigorate Europe's premier club competition.

The league phase reached a thrilling conclusion on Matchday 8 as games involving all 36 teams kicked off simultaneously with everything still to play for.

Whether facing the peril of elimination, battling to advance as one of the top eight teams, or trying to improve their ranking and avoid playing higher-placed sides in the knockout rounds, the tension was high and the drama intense as the competition's new format produced a night to remember.

With so much on the line, goals were flying in. Sixty-four were scored at an average of 3.55 goals per game, with one approximately every 90 seconds on average. Watching the action unfold was breathless, thrilling and a lot of fun.

And the outcome was unpredictable throughout. At the top end of the table, only three of the original nine teams from Pot 1 at the draw finished in the top eight – Liverpool, Barcelona and Inter. Instead Lille (Pot 3) and Aston Villa (Pot 4) muscled their way into the direct qualification places to earn the luxury of avoiding the knockout phase play-offs. Villa players huddled around a phone at the final whistle following their 4-2 win against Celtic waiting for the other results to come in, and the elation on their faces when it was confirmed they had sealed a top-eight finish showed just what it meant to them.

There was drama too at the other end of the table where Manchester City, Champions League winners in 2023, had to beat Club Brugge just to scrape into the knockout phase play-offs. Things looked bleak for Pep Guardiola's side when Raphael Onyedika gave the Belgian team the lead moments before half-time, before a three-goal second-half City surge secured their play-off place, with Club Brugge clinging on to the final qualifying spot.

Meanwhile in Lisbon, Sporting came from behind late to snatch a draw against Bologna to earn their place in the knockout phase play-offs. It was a crushing blow for GNK Dinamo who, after a difficult run of early games, had battled their way back into contention, and if not for Conrad Harder's goal at the Estádio José Alvalade, would have gone through instead of Sporting after beating AC Milan 2-1 on the final day.

It was a thrilling conclusion to the new league phase and vindication of the difficult decision to alter the format. Six years of planning, testing, mathematical models and algorithms had gone into making sure that football's premier club competition would benefit from the change, but for all the meticulous preparation and thousands of simulations, ultimately its success would only ever be judged on the field of play.

As the dust settles on a thrilling night of action, it's clear that so far the new format is achieving its goals to increase the fairness and variety of opponents, deliver greater balance, more unpredictability, more meaningful matches and more big contests between the top teams, as well as producing a more dynamic competition.

Rollercoaster ride

There was plenty of movement throughout the league phase, with teams rising or falling with virtually every result. Borussia Dortmund, last year's finalists, were fifth after Matchday 1, went top following their comprehensive 7-1 win over Celtic on Matchday 2, then dropped to 11th, only to climb back to fourth after Matchday 5. Going into their final game against Shakhtar Donetsk, they were 14th. During the course of Matchday 8, they briefly reached eighth position but in the end finished tenth, not quite enough to secure them the prize of automatic qualification for the last 16. Overall on Matchday 8, 35 out of 36 teams changed their rankings at least once, highlighting the fluidity of the new league phase.

Liverpool may have enjoyed their view from the summit for almost all of the league phase – they briefly dropped to second during the evening before reclaiming their top spot via a late Atalanta goal in Barcelona – but for the majority of teams it has been a rollercoaster ride. TV audiences have remained consistently high throughout individual games as well – the quickly changeable nature of the league table and the fact that every goal mattered keeping viewers glued to the final whistle.

Champions League race to qualify: Matchday by matchday

Expect the unexpected

As some of the big names have faltered, lesser lights have seized the spotlight. French newcomers Brest, for example, turned heads throughout the league phase with their spectacular first season at European football's top table, and despite their Matchday 8 loss to Real Madrid have secured a place in the knockout phase play-offs. It suggests the new format offers greater opportunity for upsets, with more variety in fixtures and the fact that teams are playing opponents from the same seeding pot giving them more opportunity to win points.

In the old group phase, where teams played each other twice, there were 48 different match-ups; with the new 36-club league phase, each team plays eight different opponents amounting to 144 unique matches. We have seen many high-scoring thrillers and implausible comebacks – expect the unexpected could be the new league phase's catchphrase.

Heavyweight contests

There has been an increase in big matches in the early stages of the competition, as teams from Pots 1 and 2 respectively go head-to-head against one another in the league phase. We have been treated to rematches of four of the past five Champions League finals as well as some other notable reruns. Aston Villa marked the return of European Cup action to a pulsating Villa Park by beating Bayern München who they defeated in the 1982 showpiece, and AC Milan and Liverpool (final opponents in 2005 and 2007) locked horns again.

"We are coming up against probably tougher teams than you normally would in a group stage format. Usually you would find these games in the quarter-finals or semi-finals."

Declan Rice, Arsenal midfielder

And perhaps by quirk more than design, the new format has ensured some huge match-ups in the knockout phase play-offs as well. Manchester City, for instance, will now meet Real Madrid in the next round and this time, one of those teams will be out.

There has also been an increase in goals per match. Prior to this season, the Champions League group stage campaign with the highest average goals per match was in 2019/20, with 3.21 on average. This season's league phase has produced a highest-ever average of 3.26 per game.

Competitive streak

Enhancing the competition's competitive balance lay at the heart of the new format's design. Put simply, the changes have ensured there are more competitive matches between teams of similar strength. At the same time, the new system used at the league phase draw has created a fairer distribution of opponents.

Under the new format, the fact that teams can be drawn against opponents from the same pot ensures greater balance and improved chances of the lower-seeded teams picking up points. In the 2022/23 season, for example, when Viktoria Plzeň battled valiantly against their group rivals Bayern, Inter and Barcelona but came away with six losses, the average coefficient of their opponents was 53.5 points higher than the team with the 'easiest' schedule, Chelsea. This season, the biggest average gap between the highest and lowest-ranked opponents for any league phase team is just 19 coefficient points. This led to a far more even mix of teams from different draw pots dotted across the league table. At the conclusion of the league phase, the Pot 4 teams had improved their average point tally to approximately 1 per game, compared to 0.7 on average in the 2021–24 group stage campaigns.

As some teams now turn their attention to the knockout phase play-offs, others are taking a breather before the round of 16 or returning home to lick their wounds. The six years of work on the new format has seen an incredible finale to the inaugural league phase – and the best is still to come.

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