36 UCL Teams Participating in the 2024-2025 Season... Introduction of 8-Round League Stage
Breaking away from the group stage, the matchmaking system has become more complex... It is made by computers, not human hands.
League stages 1st to 8th place go directly to the round of 16, 9th to 24th place go home and away to the round of 16 PO, andseeding system is introduced from the round of 16... League stage 1st and 2nd placed teams face off in the finals
As a new format called the league stage was introduced in the UEFA Champions League (UCL) finals, where the number of participating teams was expanded to 36 starting next season, a computer was created to create a more complex lineup.
UEFA announced on the 12th (local time) that the UCL finals for the 2024-2025 season will be held in a league stage format and that the complicated match schedule will be left to a computer program.
This is a change that occurred as the number of teams participating in the UCL finals increased from the current 32 teams to 36, and the matchmaking method also changed accordingly.
First of all, until this season, 32 teams in UCL were divided into 8 groups of 4 teams and played in the group stage.
Within the group, each team competed against the other three teams in a home-and-away format, and based on the points accumulated from six games, the first and second place teams from each group advanced to the round of 16.
Starting next season, 36 teams will be assigned to four pots according to UEFA club rankings and play in the eight-round league stage.
The method of accumulating 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss is the same, and the top 8 teams receive a direct ticket to the round of 16 according to the final ranking based on the points earned in 8 games.
The teams ranked 9th to 16th and the teams ranked 17th to 24th will face each other in the round of 16 playoffs, which will be played home and away, to determine whether or not they will advance to the tournament. https://www.powerballsite.com
Teams ranked 25th to 36th in the league stage are eliminated from the UCL and cannot participate in the UEFA Europa League.
As the number of participating teams increases and the progression method changes, the way the league stage lineup is structured has become more complicated.
First, the UCL champion and the top eight teams in the UEFA club rankings belong to Pot 1, and the remaining participating teams are placed in Pot 2, Pot 3, and Pot 4 in order of ranking.
Each team will play four home games and four away games, with two teams from each pot facing a total of eight teams in an eight-round schedule.
In principle, teams from the same country's league should avoid facing each other in the UCL league stage, but if more than four teams from one country's league advance to the UCL, the confrontation between them is limited to a maximum of one.
Accordingly, UEFA predicted that it would take about 4 hours to form the final league stage matchup if the current group drawing method, in which people draw balls by hand, is maintained.
This is why UEFA borrows the power of computers for league stage matches.
First, a person manually selects the team that will be drawn first among the teams in Pot 1.
Afterwards, a computer program selects the eight teams the team will face and the venue for the games, including home and away.
In addition, from the round of 16, the method of determining the next round's advancers through home and away combined will be maintained, but in the draw, a method of seeding the top eight teams according to league stage rankings has been added, similar to seeding in tennis matches.
Accordingly, the teams ranked 1st and 2nd in the league stage will face each other only in the finals.
The 2024-2025 season UCL will start in September and end in January next year.
