The Champions League is here again. The competition trek in Monaco on Thursday (16:00 UTC) indicates the start of a season in which more favorites than ever will compete for the continental title. The pots for the draw were completed after the final round of the play -off phase.
PSG, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool are among the heavyweights next to Spanish clubs. Real Madrid and Barcelona.
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The four UCL -Potten
Pot 1: PSG, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern, Liverpool, Inter, Chelsea, Dortmund, Barcelona
Pot 2: Arsenal, Leverkusen, Atlético Madrid, Club Brugge, Atalanta, Villarreal, Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt, Benfica
Pot 3: Tottenham, PSV, Ajax, Napoli, Sporting CP, Olympiacos, Slavia Prague, Bodo/Glimt, Marseille
Pot 4: Monaco, Galatasaray, Copenhagen, Union Saint-Gilloise, Athletic Bilbao, Qarabag, Newcastle, Pafos, Kairat
The big competitions are tighter their grip on the competition. Spain will have five representatives and England six, thanks to ranking – which went to the strongest competitions last season – and Tottenham's Europa League triumph. This time the usual four clubs per country is not enough for Spain and England, Europe's most powerful football countries. The result is a Champions League full of quality on all sides.
Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Atlético, Athletic and Villarreal Chase Glory for Laliga, while Liverpool, Arsenal, City, Newcastle, Chelsea and Tottenham are flying the English flag. PSG, Marseille and Monaco wear French hope, Bayern, Dortmund, Eintracht and Leverkusen represent Germany and Napoli, Inter, Atalanta and Juventus lead the challenge of Italy. It is a great line -up.
How the UCL League phase works
As last season, the UEFA tournament is played in a competition format among 36 participants. Each club plays eight games – four at home and four away against varied opponents. The trek, executed by computer to take several restrictions into account, determines the path for each team. The software allocates two rivals each of each of the four pots, including their own. There are two conditions: clubs from the same country will not face each other and no team can have more than two opponents from the same competition.
The level of opposition in the middle pots – 2 and 3 – will be the difficulty of the draw. Pot 4 seems to be more manageable, despite Monaco and Newcastle, especially in this edition where various outsiders have been slid in, such as Kazakhstan's Kairat or Pafos from Cyprus.
New turn in the UCL Knockouts
The competition phase remains unchanged: the top eight go directly in the round of 16, while teams end up a play -off round of 32 to join them 9th to 24th face.
From this year, however, there is a big new rule in the knockout phases. Each team that ends higher in the competition phase than his opponent will play the second stage at home from the round of 16 to the semi -final. If a club eliminates a side that ends above them, it immediately inherits that privilege for the next rounds. It is a way to reward the performance in the competition phase and at the same time recognize those who manage a shock in the last phases.