"Week of Football" for european competitions

[Sean_RedDevil]

Rummenigge has said that the UEFA have serious plans to play the semi-finals (Just one leg) and the final in the same city in the future (The same for the Europa League and the new competition Europa Conference League but of course in different cities).

He has said too that there are also talks to change the format of the group stage because "The group stages were a bit boring in the last years".

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— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[RashyForPM]

Wouldn’t be against it. Would lead to a higher number of shocks in the knockout rounds as teams who win a game won’t have to concern themselves over defending their lead in the second leg. For example, Lyon and Leipzig wouldn’t have made it into the semis last year had there been two legs.

And yes, the group stages aren’t great these days. Maybe it’s because of the pot system. In at least 6 of the 8 groups, you can already tell who is going through without a ball being kicked.

 

[Pexbo]

Oooh that’s a Gute Idee!

 

[adexkola]

Make it straight knockout

Kick out non champions

 

[Chipper]

Schwachsinn!

2-legged semis are brilliant from a drama perspective, and sort of act as a send off for the team as a lot of the crowd won't be able to go to the final. Denying home fans who can't travel, can't afford to or can't get tickets for this week of football from seeing the semi live doesn't sit right with me.

Plus even if you did go you don'tknow if your team will get to the final or not ahead of time so as well as all the corporates, you'll have 4 sets of fans buying tickets for the final. While some will offload if their team is knocked out others won't and you'll have fewer fans for the finalists getting in with a load of neutrals in there.

More potential for fan violence if more teams are there too.

 

[renandstimpyfan83]

Nah, I prefer the two legged semis tbh.

Europa League should definitely play its final on the same day as the CL final though. It would get far more attention as part of the whole event if you had, say, the EL final at 18:00 in Rotterdam, followed by the Champions League final at 20:30 in Amsterdam.

 

[DOTA]

Europa League should definitely play its final on the same day as the CL final though. It would get far more attention as part of the whole event if you had, say, the EL final at 18:00 in Rotterdam, followed by the Champions League final at 20:30 in Amsterdam.

Any particular reason to put them in the same country?

 

[renandstimpyfan83]

Any particular reason to put them in the same country?

Just seems more fun and cohesive to me. Makes them seem less like two disparate events. If you can have two Euros games on the same day in Nice and Marseille or Lens and Lille, I don’t see it being an issue.

 

[DOTA]

Just seems more fun and cohesive to me. Makes them seem less like two disparate events. If you can have two Euros games on the same day in Nice and Marseille or Lens and Lille, I don’t see it being an issue.

Yeah, maybe. I guess suddenly switching from Moscow to Wembley changes the feel a bit, even to us watching on sofa/in the pub.

Certainly agree there shouldn't be any issues doing it.

 

[100]

The latter stages of the CL are the times I most enjoy football outside of United/International. Would be disappointed at anything that reduced that.

The group stages on the other hand....

Put 8 in a group, everyone play each other once - 6 nations style. Same number would qualify. The groups desperately need some variety.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Change the group stages. They have been boring for a very long time (generally).

I don’t like the idea of a one off semi final at a neutral ground.

If for example you had United vs Barca. Compare the no of fans who could watch that in person to a one off game in Switzerland?

the point of having the semi and then the final in the same country, would surely be so that you immediately go from one to the other. Semis on Wednesday - Final on Saturday.

for those fans that actually can get tickets, the uncertainty and logistics would be horrendous.

anyway, what am I talking about, football authorities don’t give a shit about natural fans.

 

[Sean_RedDevil]

Rummenigge has said that the UEFA have serious plans to play the semi-finals (Just one leg) and the final in the same city in the future (The same for the Europa League and the new competition Europa Conference League but of course in different cities).

He has said too that there are also talks to change the format of the group stage because "The group stages were a bit boring in the last years".

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

I have talked with a friend of mine (He works as youth scout with connection to the UEFA) in the last couple of hours and he has heard the plans for the group stages for the Champions League are

- The group stage will be expanded by 4 clubs
- 6 groups with 6 clubs (So 10 matches for every club)
- The group-winners and runners-up will qualify directly for the Last 16 Round (The best two runners-up will get home advantage in the next round).
- The clubs on the 3rd place and 4th place will play a single playoff-match (The clubs on the 3rd place will have home advantage).
- The losers of the single playoff-matches will drop down to the Europa League.
- Some matchdays will be definitely on the weekend.

 

[Nickelodeon]

There's nothing wrong with the CL today. Naturally, the group stages are not as thrilling (wouldn't call them boring) since there are smaller teams who have earned their right to play. If that is taken away, then the smaller teams like Olympiakos or Dynamo Kiev, wouldn't even have a shot at becoming a more prominent European Club.

Purely from an entertainment perspective, the CL has been an outstanding spectacle in the past few seasons and the two-legged matches contribute to it. If there are structural changes which gets the entertainment value higher without compromising the opportunities to smaller clubs, then I'm all for it.

Sadly, this is another money-driven statement made by one of the big clubs.

 

[stevoc]

Don't like the idea of this to be honest, it's ok during the pandemic but should be dropped after that.

Having the Semi finals also being one off games at neutral grounds takes something away from the final in my opinion.

 

[Pagh Wraith]

Awful. The Champions League semis are the highlight of every season.

 

[Mrs Smoker]

Clueless UEFA.

If they want incredible entertaining Champions League coupled with immense butthurt of many top clubs, just hire me. Great ideas here.

 

[giorno]

Don't fix something that isn't broken

Change the group stages if you must, by all means, but don't you dare touch the KO stages. It's the best part of the entire season

 

[NinjaFletch]

I liked it as a novelty when no fans were allowed.

As ever, Uefa are thinking about how they can extract more dough by selling off extortionate corporate tickets to semi finals at neutral venues. It is, therefore, a shite idea.

 

[SER19]

A group of 4 with everybody playing eachother once, (based on seeding and coefficient for who gets to play home etc) then straight to massive knock outs over 2 legs, until 1 legged semis and final at neutral venue