The New Champions League Format Actually Rocks

As loyal readers of Defector know, I am never wrong. I’ve certainly never written an article that was eventually proven to be overly optimistic, overly pessimistic, or overly incorrect. Given my general infallibility, I come today to apologize for my first incorrect thought in at least three years: The new Champions League format kind of whips ass.

I didn’t think it would, and I wasn’t alone in that thought. When it was announced, my first reaction was that this would just make the group stage—now called the league stage—even more tilted in favor of the big clubs on the continent. Whereas before, these clubs could be thrown in together in a group of death—like last season’s Dortmund-PSG-Milan-Newcastle meat grinder—now, my theory went, they would just be able to mop up on a diet of weak clubs to secure a spot in the knockout rounds.

That instinct wasn’t necessarily wrong. Of the eight teams currently in the automatic advancement slots at the top of the table, I’d say that five of them would be favored to qualify from a traditional Champions League group. However, I and the many other critics of this new format forgot that there are simply more good teams than there are slots in the top eight.

This congestion has created a middle class of sorts in this year’s campaign that is thrillingly diverse. The middle 16 teams on the table, slots which will eventually lead their clubs into a two-leg knockout at the end of the league stage for the eight remaining spots in the round of 16, consist of some of the biggest clubs in the world—Manchester City, Juventus, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Milan, Atlético Madrid—but also clubs that perhaps would have had little shot of earning a knockout spot in the previous format but now will have a real chance—clubs like Dinamo Zagreb, Feyenoord, Club Brugge, and Celtic.

A big reason why this middle class exists, and why it contains recent champions and financial juggernauts among relative minnows, is that the new format forces teams to play more matches against tough opposition and encourages every team to go all out every single match. Gone are the days when a top team could suffer a shock upset or two and still advance by winning its final three or four matches. Now, a shock upset—like Real Madrid losing 1-0 to Lille or Manchester City getting rolled 4-1 by Sporting earlier this week—puts real strain on those teams’ chances to qualify, at least automatically. That’s not to say they won’t; this format still favors deeper teams, especially with the two extra matches in what had already been an overburdened fixture list. But if, say, City doesn’t climb into the top eight, then its fate will be decided in a two-leg knockout, and strange things can happen there.

Putting the increased competition aside, it’s simply a lot of fun to have so many games between top teams each matchday and, perhaps more crucially, to not have those matches just be repeats of earlier group stage matches. Let’s take league-leading Liverpool as an example: Instead of going up against Bayer Leverkusen twice in a few months, the Reds’ first four matches have seen them face Milan, Bologna, Leipzig, and then Leverkusen. (Shout out to the Pool Boys here, who remain the only perfect team in the competition, winning four out of four.) They don’t even have an easy run-in after this, with matches against Real Madrid, Girona, Lille, and PSV rounding out their league-stage schedule. That is a tougher and more interesting slate than any group in the previous format could have produced, even in a group of death, which means that all Liverpool matches could be considered appointment viewing.

This pattern plays out across the table. While some top teams are flourishing under the challenge, others are buckling. It’s time to talk about the best case for this new format: Paris Saint-Germain has gotten weaker year-over-year in the last few, but at no point in the previous format was it ever truly in danger of an embarrassing group stage exit. However, in this new format, the Parisians are floundering. After beating Girona in the opener, the Ligue 1 leaders have lost to Arsenal, tied PSV, and most recently lost to Atlético on Wednesday.

PSG now sits in 25th place, one outside the two-leg knockout slots and currently facing elimination. Its remaining matches aren’t particularly easy either: While it should beat both Salzburg and Stuttgart, at least on paper, PSG also has matches against Manchester City and Bayern Munich on the docket. Will it be able to scoop enough points to advance? Only time will tell, but the question is the point.

In the previous format, the early parts of the group stage were what mattered, but even when a club lost early on, it was easy to see where it could make up the points in head-to-head matchups to secure entry to the knockout round. Groups only rarely entered the final day with the fates of all four teams still in the balance, which always meant that at least one of the matches would be a bit of a lame duck. With this new format, very few clubs will be outright eliminated by the time the final matchday rolls around. Sure, bottom dwellers like Slovan Bratislava or Young Boys or any of the other clubs sitting on zero points now (a group that shockingly includes Leipzig) will probably be checked out by then, but it’s simple math for the rest of the field: Whereas before, half the teams ended their Champions League campaign at the group stage, 75 percent will live to play another day this time around.

This will make the final matchday riveting, up and down the table. Only a couple teams will likely be comfortable enough in their position to rest players in those matches, their safety secured by the end of the group stage. The rest of the clubs in the table’s cluttered middle will duke it out for survival and seeding (the top-eight seeds will host the second leg of the playoff ties, which is traditionally an advantage). While this new format was motivated by money over everything—more matches equals more revenue, as do more matches between marquee teams—UEFA might have happened upon a better, or at least a more exciting, way to figure out who the best teams on the continent are. I’m happy to have been wrong about this.