The Champions League says goodbye to the usual draw system

The group stage of the Champions League, which starts today, closes a page in the history of this tournament, which will take on a new, unusual format starting next season. The favorite of the latest draw in the old format looks to be the team that is the current owner of the most prestigious club trophy – Manchester City, which is only getting stronger every year.

This nuance, which gives a special flavor to the current Champions League, of course, could not fail to pay attention to any major media resource announcing the start of its main part. Well, yes, a big page is turning in the history of the first-ranked European Cup. This draw is the last in a format that has existed, with minor adjustments, for more than three decades since the tournament’s inception. From next season everything will be different. Not 32, but 36 clubs will play in the group stage. More precisely, there will no longer be a group stage, strictly speaking. Everyone will be mixed into one pile, and the competition within it will take place according to a system that will be easiest for those who closely follow chess, and even better, often play it in online competitions, to adapt to. In this genre, the Swiss system is used quite often.

And the playoffs will be different, with an additional stage before the 1/8 finals, which the top eight in the Swiss tournament will miss. The 16 clubs located behind him will have to fight in this round as well.

But for now everything is as before, and there is no need to rack your brains by looking closely at the regulations: there are eight quartets, two clubs from each advance to the cup stage. And many forecasters are trying to figure out which of the giants can immediately lose all their titles. Now the most likely candidates for failure are easy to find. Having gone through a radical restructuring and having lost Lionel Messi and Neymar, PSG, with its still unrealized dream of the main club trophy, is terribly struggling. It’s so terrible that the defeat in the French championship from Nice is not particularly surprising. And the Parisians ended up in a natural “group of death” – with Borussia Dortmund, Milan and Newcastle. Getting out of it even in optimal condition and with Messi and Neymar is still a task. Manchester United is also accelerating in the English championship with a terrible creak, and strong rivals – Tottenham, Brighton, Arsenal – deal with it without problems. Napoli, without coach Luciano Spalletti, who has left for the Italian national team, is not at all as bright as last season.

With the favorite, everything also seems simple. Analysts from the company Gracenote, known for its sports forecasts, have a so-called club index, in which they estimate the chances of winning in different tournaments as a percentage, trying to be as accurate as possible. So, their rating regarding this Champions League looks surprising. At the very least, such a gap between the club at the top and its closest pursuer is extremely rare. At the top with 38.4% is the current prize winner Manchester City, in second place with 13.4% is Real Madrid. Next are Bayern, Barcelona, ​​Arsenal, and the finalist of the previous edition, Inter, with figures dwarfed by Manchester figures. And the bookmakers, with their quotes, express solidarity and confidence with Gracenote that the already mighty giant, which every year, thanks to targeted acquisitions of exceptional value (a year ago – Erling Haaland, last summer – Joschko Guardiol) only gains in power, can hardly break into an abyss from a height that had long remained inaccessible to him, but was finally conquered on June 10 in Paris.

Alexey Dospehov