Thoughts include: So is it 8 or 10 pool games? The graphic says 8, the explanation says 10. I could see some news rag mucking up the details, but this is UEFA.com "Slot two will be awarded to a domestic champion by extending from four to five the number of clubs qualifying via the so-called 'Champions Path'." I have no idea what that means specifically, but it sounds exciting! Teams that do not qualify for the knockout round will not be eligible for the Europa League. That really doesn't help any of the middling clubs who used to finish 3rd in their groups and went on to actually win a competition they were more suited to win in the first place. Not sure how I feel about this one. Finally, and probably the most interesting (and likely most difficult to explain) portion of the new format was completely left out of the "detailed" explanation: how will the fixtures be decided??? 1 single group of 36 teams, whether it's 8 or 10 games each, how are they determining who plays who, which are home vs. away, and who doesn't have to play who? Surely this isn't gonna be one giant blind draw. And even if it were, there's still 36 blind paths to determine. But it sounds like they consulted everyone who needs to be consulted (the ones with money) and will ensure that the best possible competition is presented to the fans because (money) that's what the Champions League is striving for here.
The one bright spot is the variety of opponents, but you've lost the home-and-away aspect guaranteeing a balanced schedule or that you'll get the highlight opponent in your venue. In the meantime it's weighted further to help the power clubs retain a presence and have better odds of winning. It's way more complicated than it needs to be, but that was inevitable once the handful of giant clubs started whining for more money. The likes of Florentino Perez will kill the sport in their ambitions for power.
It is 8 group stage games for all 36 teams. At one point 10 games was discussed, but they landed on 8. Then the home and away playoffs for the 16 teams that finish mid-table, which would be 10 games for those teams. And ESPN had a much more in depth explanation of how the group games would be determined: How will they decide the fixtures? UEFA is expected to create four pots of nine teams, almost certainly based upon the five-year club coefficient. Each team will play two teams from each pot (one home, one away) to create an eight-match fixture list of roughly equal strength. More "big matches" are created by the teams in the top pots being drawn against each other, which wasn't possible under the current system. For instance, the teams in Pot 1 would draw two other clubs from Pot 1, 2, 3 and 4. Teams from the same association still cannot play each other in the group stage. This is how the seeding pots would look, based on a 36-team Champions League intake using the new system and last season's final league tables. Pot 1: Chelsea, Villarreal, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Lille, Sporting CP, Real Madrid Pot 2: Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool, Sevilla, Borussia Dortmund, FC Porto, Ajax Pot 3: Shakhtar Donetsk, Lyon, RB Leipzig, FC Salzburg, Benfica, Atalanta, Zenit St Petersburg, Besiktas, Dynamo Kyiv Pot 4: Dinamo Zagreb, Club Brugge, Young Boys, Leicester City, AC Milan, Real Sociedad, Malmo, VfL Wolfsburg, Sheriff Tiraspol So, Premier League champions Manchester City could have a fixture list of: Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica, FC Salzburg, Young Boys, Sheriff Tiraspol.
Expanded UCL, 48-team World Cup, Nations League, the PL's Game 39. More games = more money. And it's not just football. Formula 1 keeps adding races. MLB expanded their playoffs, NBA added play-in games, NFL added a 7th playoff team and 17th game. NCAA has expanded their basketball tournament to 68 teams and added a football playoff. It only goes in one direction, the only question is how fast.
Do we know if they are expanding squad sizes and maybe doing away with not being able to play players who already played for a different club but transferred?