Having that said, i am aware of the fact that surprises do eventually happen, but because UCL is set this way, even when they do happen, it results in a minor difference in overal. What i mean by "the way it's set". I mean that the difference between the top clubs and the low clubs is such that it makes group stage irrelevant, because there is hardly any surprise big enough to continously make a major difference in group stages, therefore in final outcome of UCL winner. If groups were formed of top 16 best teams in the world, as i suggest, any slight surprise (which would happen at the same rate as they do now) would result in a big club being eliminated already from group stages, which, as you may conclude yourself, makes group stages interesting and RELEVANT (the key word here) opposed to right now. In that format, clubs would have to give their all from the very first game = interesting group stages.
Sigh, you insult my intelligence with your donald duck approach of the matter. If you think I'm "surprised" if Real/Barca donot end up with numbers you mention, you should have a brain check, because something isnot functioning up there. With your reasoning surprises donot exist if there is a probability it occurs. So when I walk around in the city the probability I will be hit by a meteorite is ludicrous tiny, but if it does happen to me I cannot be surprised?
It most certainly would be a surprise if both finished the same season with that record. Because it's not possible.
The CL group stage will never be relevant because it resembles the meaningless summer friendlies. What they need to do is get rid of it completely and go back to elimination from start to finish. They should combine CL and EL, and add another 48 teams for a total of 128. Seed them to protect the big teams if they want, and play home and away elimination style. This way little guys have some chance of winning and the big teams (or most of them) get their 6 fall games before spring. Along the way, there will be a few surprises and big upsets that will make it more exciting. Play 3 rounds in the fall and then 4 in the spring like now. I haven't watched a CL group stage game in years. They are meaningless in the current format.
UCL is not about making it as easy as possible for small teams to make a surprise. There is also a reason why the elemination system was abandoned. You want to make group stage relevant? Simple, get rid of small teams so that groups become more interesting and tough. If groups were something like this: A 1. Real Madrid 2. PSG 3. United 4. Porto B 1. Chelsea 2. Barcelona 3. Napoli 4. Ajax C 1. Bayern 2. Monaco 3. Sevilla 4. Tottenham D 1.Juventus 2. Dortmund 3. City 4. Atletico Madrid I don't know why, but i am pretty sure you would watch it, plus top teams wouldn't have a room for error, so the best of football is guaranteed from the day one. I don't understand why nobody likes this idea except me. Btw, if you think that you would watch something like Real Madrid vs Apoel just because is part of an elimination system, you are wrong. It's not the system that you don't like, but the attractivness of those games, that's why i think just getting rid of them would be the best solution. After all, there is a Europe league for such teams.
The club teams could be more acttrive with four groups and finally sixteen teams of top in CL. Some this number of clubs in top leagues: 4 from Italy 4 from England 3 from Spain 2 from Germany 1 from Netherlands 1 from France 1 from Greece Just I like. Serie A best league.
Stop wishing for surprises FFS!!! If your club is too weak to go far, then too bad. Load up in the next transfer window. The current format is fine. Begging for surprises is literally like begging for handouts. Hold your own nuts.
I'm not wishing for surprises but for some excitement, and there is no group format that can match simple home and away elimination format which they still use every spring. They can have a group of Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern, and PSG, and I still couldn't care less to watch it.
I'm probably misreading your 37-0-1. I've been spending too much time recently discussing baseball and NFL gridiron on facebook. In U.S. sports, records are displayed as wins-losses-draws. So I took the "1" to mean number of drawn matches. I forgot I'm in a soccer forum where records are written as wins-draws-losses. So my bad.
And you get back to initial point, what is exciting in making things easier for low teams? Leceister winning premier league despite playing by the same rules as any other low team in epl history. That's ********ing exciting!!! If they shortened league to 10 teams that season and Leicester won, that wouldn't be exciting, but quite opposite, boring. Make team work as much as possible even if they are weaker, surprises will happen eventually, despite the system. And don't lie you wouldn't care to watch it, two of those teams will be eliminated after 6 games. Stake is huge, which makes it exciting.
Having teams 1 through 64 seeded and 65 through 128 seeded would produce lopsided scores. Do you want to see clubs score double-digits? The Top 128 club coefficients for 2013-2014 through 2017-2018 so far include two clubs from Cyprus, two from Israel, three from Denmark, two from Croatia, two from Romania, and four from Switzerland. Do you want those leagues to have multiple clubs? Furthermore, it would include thirteen clubs from England, ten from Spain, twelve from Italy, and fifteen from Germany, for a total of 50 clubs from those leagues. If you made a limit of 8 clubs per country, that would remove 18 clubs, and they would be replaced with clubs ranked 129th through 146th including Dinamo Minsk and HJK Helsinki. Obviously the Top 128 clubs wouldn't all qualify from their domestic leagues, which would add clubs farther down. Here's an idea for a Champions League with 87 clubs playing knockout, with three Qualifying Rounds and seven Champions League proper rounds: 57 clubs start in the Champions League proper and 7 clubs come from qualifying rounds: Leagues 1-3: 5 clubs (15 clubs) Leagues 4-6: 4 clubs (12 to make 27) Leagues 7-9: 3 clubs (9 to make 36) Leagues 10-15: 2 clubs (12 to make 48) Leagues 16-24: 1 club (9 to make 57) Qualifying Round 3 winners: 7 clubs Leagues 25-55 excluding Liechtenstein are 30 leagues: Qualifying Round 1: The bottom 16 champions Qualifying Round 2: 8 champions and 8 Qualifying Round 1 winners Qualifying Round 3: 6 champions and 8 Qualifying Round 2 winners Champions League proper: Round 1 to go from 64 clubs to 48 clubs with 32 clubs starting later. These clubs would play: 4th place from League 4 3rd place from Leagues 5-9 2nd place from Leagues 10-15 Champions from Leagues 12-24 7 Qualifying Round 3 winners Round 2 to go from 48 clubs to 32 clubs with 16 clubs starting later. These clubs would play: 5th place from Leagues 1-3 4th place from Leagues 2-3 3rd place from Leagues 4-6 2nd place from Leagues 6-9 Champions from Leagues 8-11 16 Round 1 winners Round 3 to go from 32 clubs to 16 clubs. These clubs would play: Champions from Leagues 1-7 2nd place from Leagues 1-5 3rd place from Leagues 1-3 4th place from League 1 16 Round 2 winners Round 1 would be during what is now the first two Group Stage matchdays, Round 2 would be during the middle two Group Stage matchdays, and Round 3 would be during the last two Group Stage matchdays. The Group Stage matchdays are two weeks apart except when national teams play. National teams play in October between Group Stage matchdays 2 and 3 and in November between Group Stage matchdays 4 and 5. This works out so that none of the rounds would have national teams play in between the two legs. Rounds 4 and on would be the same as in the current format. With 64 clubs in the Champions League proper, more countries could have their champion start in the Champions League proper, and many of them would be eliminated before the top clubs enter in Round 3. IMO having clubs from the top leagues start in different rounds is better than the top four clubs in the top four leagues starting in the Group Stage.