At a time when some occasions are banning telephones to make sure the viewers is correctly engaged within the expertise, the perceived success of the brand new Champions League format was as an alternative captured by the picture of Aston Villa and Membership Brugge gamers huddled round numerous units anxiously checking the scores in Barcelona and Zagreb to see in the event that they’d made the highest eight and play-offs respectively.
Wednesday’s scenes at Villa Park and the Etihad Stadium had a palpable attraction to them. Right here was a contemporary twist on transistor radios being held to 1 ear, game-states being handed by phrase of mouth adopted by cheers or curses, progress or elimination. This was introduced as a welcome novelty, one thing that didn’t used to occur within the group stage the league part has changed. All hail the league part!
The broadly constructive reception to the brand new method known as to thoughts Harry Lime’s immortal line in The Third Man. “In Switzerland, that they had concord, that they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” Lime maybe wouldn’t have been so disdainful if he’d identified concerning the Swiss mannequin, as the brand new Champions League format is understood.
However except for delivering more cash to the golf equipment, extra video games to the broadcasters and extra income to itself, did UEFA’s overhaul work?
There have been some nice tales throughout the league part, from Lille and Brest over-performing to Manchester Metropolis’s surprising psychodrama. Lille, as an illustration, misplaced their coach Paulo Fonseca to Milan in the summertime and bought their greatest younger participant, Leny Yoro, to Manchester United. They wanted to undergo two preliminary rounds, the place they eradicated Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce, simply to make the league part.
When Ruben Amorim’s Sporting beat them on the Swiss mannequin’s opening evening, most individuals would have tipped the Lisbon aspect, not Lille to be the gatecrashers into the highest eight. However, no. Lille bounced again to beat champions Actual Madrid, then neighbours Atletico. They drew with Juventus and solely misplaced to Liverpool after taking place to 10 males.
Remy Cabella celebrates with Ngal’ayel Mukau as Lille thump Feyenoord 6-1 on Wednesday (Rico Brouwer/Soccrates/Getty Pictures)
However previous editions of the Champions League didn’t lack storylines like Lille’s, so it’s laborious to attribute theirs to the brand new format.
Brest, maybe, benefited from taking part in eight video games and eight totally different opponents as an alternative of six towards three different golf equipment, as was the case in earlier seasons. It feels a very long time in the past now however the momentum for his or her qualification to the upcoming play-off spherical got here from a light-weight introduction to Europe’s elite membership competitors.
To the impartial, their fixtures felt much less Champions League and extra Austrian Bundesliga or Mitropa Cup within the early months as they beat Sturm Graz and RB Salzburg, then creditably held Bayer Leverkusen to a draw earlier than overcoming Sparta in Prague. It was a heartwarming story, even when Brest’s Cinderella story was a bit like giving Cinders a relationship app with the absolute best algorithm to assist her discover her happy-ever-after.
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The miracle of Brest, a membership a world aside from Champions League opponents Actual Madrid
They had been trumpeted because the second-best new addition to the Champions League. The opposite was the buzzword of the ultimate evening simulcast.
Because the competitors clashed for the primary time with the winter switch window, the notion of jeopardy was roundly heralded because the Champions League’s greatest new signing, hyped as a prospect able to drawing extra consideration than the same old solid of stars. However, make no mistake, quite a lot of smoke and mirrors had been in use right here.
A part of the jeopardy got here from lacking out on the highest eight.
Atalanta and Milan fell out of it on Wednesday. Their punishment? Two extra video games on their schedule within the play-offs. Is {that a} penalty? Followers of golf equipment are inclined to wish to see them in motion as a lot as potential, notably within the Champions League, so this didn’t appear a lot of a penalty. Quite the opposite, it could possibly be interpreted as a bonus by anybody aside from the coach and the gamers who should issue in additional effort, preparation and fixture congestion.
Yunus Musah sees crimson in Zagreb and Milan are overwhelmed – and condemned to play two extra video games (Marko Lukunic/Pixsell/MB Media/Getty Pictures)
At one finish of the standings, Liverpool may ship the youngsters to play PSV in Eindhoven. On the different, 9 groups had already been eradicated earlier than the ultimate gameweek. The majority of the rest had been both certain of qualification or nearly certain of it, which meant the jeopardy was jostling for place in a desk so giant it felt like watching midfield overtakes within the Indy 500.
As a viewer, it was laborious to maintain up and keep on observe.
The actual drama got here from the random coincidence of the brand new format’s introduction with the one season in Pep Guardiola’s 17-year teaching profession when his group are spluttering. Ultimately, although, the extension of the opening part from six video games to eight allowed huge golf equipment like Metropolis, who left it last-minute in contrast with Paris Saint-Germain and Actual Madrid, sufficient rope to drag themselves out of bother.
It was once that 10 or 11 factors was the benchmark for qualification from a six-game group. Although in 2013, 12 factors weren’t sufficient for Napoli. This time spherical, within the inaugural league part, Metropolis, Sporting and Membership Brugge reached the play-offs with 11 factors from two further matches. Much less from extra by some means represented progress.
Metropolis diced with catastrophe, left it late, and nonetheless reached the play-offs (James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Pictures)
The tie-breakers had been unsatisfactory, too.
Whereas Brugge celebrated in defeat in Manchester, Dinamo Zagreb had been downcast in victory on the Maksimir. They’d overwhelmed Milan however missed the play-offs on purpose distinction. It raised the query: is purpose distinction a good differentiator whenever you’ve performed a unique set of fixtures to, in Dinamo’s case, Metropolis, Sporting and Brugge?
Away targets wouldn’t symbolize an ideal resolution both, as you don’t play each group residence and away.
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Eighteen Champions League video games, one uncommon project: watch each match (in five-minute segments)
By taking part in eight totally different groups, there may be extra selection, extra curiosity and fewer sameness. Nonetheless, the brand new format throws up one other conundrum: when is a league not a league? By not taking part in everybody, your membership’s fixtures can really feel summary and that abstraction could possibly be like lifting the lid on Pandora’s field. As a result of if residence and away isn’t a factor, does it matter the place these video games are performed? Would possibly it open the door to UEFA Champions League fixtures in New York and Riyadh?
We should always always remember the unique sin of this format change was the problem posed to UEFA by a Tremendous League. The Swiss mannequin is an open mannequin. It isn’t closed to entry. Nevertheless it does safe golf equipment extra income — albeit not as a lot as some assume they’d make in a brand new competitors — and the 16-team play-off spherical works like a security internet from elimination that retains the under-performing elite within the competitors as an alternative of sending them right down to the much less profitable, extra tiring Europa League as in earlier years.
In order with the phantasm of jeopardy, the opposite trick right here — a compromise, actually — is that this can be a Tremendous League approximating format beneath UEFA branding.
“Are you not entertained?”
I will go away you with the picture of Aleksander Ceferin, bloodied by the Tremendous League insurrectionists, throwing his sword onto the Colosseum gravel.
Is it a thumb-up, a thumb-down, or is your fist nonetheless hovering uncertainly within the air?
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Champions League play-offs draw analysed: Man Metropolis face Actual Madrid, aid for Bayern, Milan and Juventus
(Prime picture: Michael Regan – UEFA/UEFA by way of Getty Pictures)