Guest Jeffery S. Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 The new format for the UEFA cup was released today. The new competition will be called the 'UEFA Europa League'. There will be four previous rounds, to get down to 48 teams who will play in a group phase in 12 groups. Every group will have home and away matches between all group members, like the current Champions League. The top 2 in each group qualify (total 24) and they add the 8 third place finishers from Champions to make 32 teams. From this point on it is all knock-out rounds, like the Champions League. They'll play on Thursdays as now or Wednesdays when not interfering with the Champions League matches. Basically the format is a second tier Champions League, with more participants than now (18 more in the group phase, meaning more weaker teams and I think a more watered down, but perhaps fairer group phase). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amacpher Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 Almost a shame they're changing the format considering this season's UEFA Cup has been far more interesting than the Champions League. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jeffery S. Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 quote:Originally posted by amacpher Almost a shame they're changing the format considering this season's UEFA Cup has been far more interesting than the Champions League. I think it involves keeping the smaller federations happy as more Estonian and Moldavian teams might make the group stage. And if they do, and get to play your Evertons and Lazios and Sevillas then they make money at the gate. This way if a group has a few strong teams all the lesser ones are ensured a home match against them, not like now. It does not work the other way around, for the strong teams most UEFA match-ups in the group stage are weaker and less interesting than their national leagues and cups. For example, even for a decent team like Copenhagen there was a small crowd in Valencia to see them, just does not get the interest. Anything that benefits the smaller clubs and federations is probably good for their development, but also good for Platini getting re-elected (by the way Platini has become a hated figure in Spain for the attempt to sanction At. Madrid for the incidents during the Marseille visit, it did seem like a clear case of UEFA favouring the French side, but I can get into that another day, all I can say is that fans shouting "Ku-u-u-un" was treated by UEFA as racist jeering). This does add to the number of games to be played so all sides will need deeper squads to last. It will also create some scheduling conflicts because as is, with only 4 group stage matches, they end it in mid-December to avoid midweek Cup dates. They'll need two more dates and will have to start early like Intertoto did, in early July. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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