The main round of the all new UEFA Champions League season is to get under way in September. The draw for the bigger and newly branded tournament took place in Monaco on Thursday. However, this season's league matches format won't be the same as previous years .
For most football fans , it must be a wonder how this new format works and how this upcoming CL season will play out. For a fact ,the updated version of the Champions League will see 36 clubs feature in the main round of the competition, an increase from 32 under the old format. This time around there is an extra place for the fifth best European league according to UEFA’s ranking, which means France’s Ligue 1 now has three automatic qualifiers.Since 2003, the Champions League featured 32 clubs split into eight groups of four, with the top two from each section advancing to the last 16. That has now changed radically, and from this season, the 36 clubs will be pooled together in one league. Earlier, participating teams played six games in the group stage, facing each opponent home and away. Now the clubs will each have eight games, one each against their eight opponents.
Now this is how the new group system works, the 36 teams will be split into four seeded pots of nine. Every club will play two teams from each pot, one at home and one away. No team will come up against another club from the same domestic league as them, and every club can only face a maximum of two teams from any one country. In previous years, the group stage ended in December, but the expansion of the Champions League means the two extra matchdays will be staged in January. The number of games is increasing from 96 in the old group stage to 144 in the new league phase.
With this recent development one wonders how the knockout stage of the CL competition will pan out . At this juncture the 36 clubs will be ranked together in the one league with the top eight all progressing to the last 16 and the format of the competition from that point on remaining the same. Albeit, it will be seeded, taking into account positions in the league phase. Furthermore, a playoff round will be introduced with the teams finishing from ninth to 24th in the league phase going through to a two-legged knockout tie to decide the remaining spots in the last 16. These playoff ties will be seeded as well, interesting right ?!
The dates of the Champions League matches for the 2024/2025 season are as follows ;
Matchday 1: 17, 18, 19 September 2024
Matchday 2: 1, 2 October 2024
Matchday 3: 22, 23 October 2024
Matchday 4: 5, 6 November 2024
Matchday 5: 26, 27 November 2024
Matchday 6: 10, 11 December 2024
Matchday 7: 21, 22 January 2025
Matchday 8: 29 January 2025
Another new addition to this new CL format is the fact that competition will now have one exclusive week when there will be no matches played in the other two competitions that week.
For the Champions League, the exclusive week is matchday one with games to be played on September 17, 18 and 19.
The 2024/25 UEFA Champions League season will be concluded at Munich's Football Arena München, the highlight of European football's club calendar returning to the German city for the first time since 2012.Completed on 30 April 2005, the stadium is located on Werner-Heisenberg-Allee and belongs to Bayern München. It staged four games at UEFA EURO 2020 and since it was the venue for UEFA EURO 2024, it will be the first stadium in history to host matches in consecutive UEFA European Championships. Its capacity for that tournament will be 67,000. This the new CL season I feel promises to be an interesting and intriguing one . This football season I'm certain will be an action packed one seperating the boys from the men.