ANXIOUSLY WAITING FOR THE PLAY-OFF ROUND
This season's Champions League applies the "Swiss system" for the group stage for the first time, called the "league" stage (this is a typical way of playing chess, which involves many players). A notable difference compared to previous years: each team meets up to 8 different opponents and each pair only plays one round (instead of only meeting 3 teams and each pair plays 2 rounds in the group stage as before). The randomness is greatly increased in this way of playing. Teams do not have the opportunity to study each other thoroughly. And because there is only one round, if the "big guys" stumble against a so-called weaker opponent, there is no chance to learn from their mistakes and win again in the second round.
"Giant" Real Madrid (right) must compete in the play-off round
Preliminary results: the 3 strongest clubs in Europe at the moment (according to UEFA rankings), Real Madrid, Man.City, Bayern Munich, all have to play play-offs after the end of the "league" stage. In the last 5 seasons, the Champions League title has fallen into the hands of these teams 4 times (in the remaining season, Man.City reached the final, lost to Chelsea). In the immediate future, Real and Man.City will have to eliminate each other, meaning that the round of 16 will be without 1 of the 2 strongest candidates for the championship. Last season's runner-up Borussia Dortmund (currently No. 8 in Europe) and No. 5 in Europe PSG will also have to play play-offs. The play-off round (2 rounds taking place on February 11-12 and February 18-19) also has many big names: Juventus, Benfica, AC Milan, PSV, Sporting Lisbon...
BOLD RATIO APPEARS A LOT
Bayern beat Dinamo Zagreb 9-2. Dortmund beat Celtic 7-1. Atalanta and Lille beat Young Boys and Feyenoord 6-1. Man.City, Leverkusen, Atalanta and Barcelona beat Sparta Prague, Red Bull Salsburg, Sturm Graz and Young Boys 5-0… The margin of three or more goals appeared in 42 of 144 matches (an average of one in every 3.4 matches). This is the highest rate since the Champions League had a group stage in the 2003-2004 season. There have also never been as few draws in the Champions League as this season (12.5%).
The unpredictable developments brought about by the new format force strong teams to try to win whenever they have the chance. On the other hand, people also have to try to score a lot of goals to have good secondary indicators. A ranking of 36 teams will have many cases of equal points. UEFA has always valued the results of direct confrontations over goal difference when ranking teams with equal points. But in this season's Champions League format, it is mandatory to choose goal difference as the leading secondary indicator. Depending on the viewing point, people will like or hate the new format of this season's Champions League. In any case, this will be a historic tournament in terms of "uniqueness". Up to 68% of the matches in the "league" stage will be between teams that have never met before in the Champions League. Will there be more excitement?
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/champions-league-dai-gia-chen-chuc-o-vong-play-off-185250202230522819.htm
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