What is the Champions League round of 16? find out all about the new format

Europe’s most important club tournament has undergone a major change for this season.

The UEFA Champions League will begin a new edition in September. Of course, the 2024-2025 season will not be like the previous ones, as it will experience a format change that includes the league phase. Here we tell you what it is all about. The competition goes from 32 to 36 teams and the group stage that we knew disappears to become more like a Super League

The Champions League will no longer be as we knew it. a new era for the top competition in European football will begin with the draw. The most significant change in the new format is the disappearance of the traditional six-match group stage. We will no longer see those groups of four teams in which the top two teams qualified for the round of 16 and the third went to the Europa League.

For some time now, there have been attempts in Europe to make changes to the continent’s main club tournament. This was because many claimed that the competition was losing in terms of fans, an argument used by the most powerful teams that tried to carry out the Super League. UEFA, in part, listened to these complaints and decided to get its hands, now we will have to see if they can win over the fans.

What is the UEFA Champions League phase?

The tournament went from having 32 to 36 participating teams and eliminated the group stage. Instead, the league phase will be played with a general table, which consists of each team playing eight matches against eight different clubs to be chosen by draw. Four of them will be at home and the other four as visitors.

At the end of the league phase, the top eight teams in the standings will qualify for the round of 16, while the 9th to 24th teams will play a play-off, where the eight winners will also qualify for the round of 16. From then on, the competition will continue as it was, with two-legged matches, going through the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals.

A “playoff” before the qualifiers

The top eight teams will automatically advance to the round of 16, while the teams ranked 9th to 24th will play a two-legged tie, with the winners advancing to the round of 16 and the eight losers going to the UEFA Europa League . The bottom 12 teams will be eliminated.

In the play-off phase, which involves teams ranked 9th to 24th, the teams that finish between 9th and 16th will be seeded in the draw, which means that they will face a team ranked between 17th and 24th and will also play the return leg at home. These matches will be played in the only two weeks in February when there will be competition.

The eight clubs that must win teams to these qualifiers will advance to the round of 16 , where they will face one of the top eight teams, who will be seeded in the round of 16. There is no way that two teams from the same country will face each other.

From the round of 16 onwards, the competition follows a usual path of crosses, and the quarter-final and semi-final duels will be decided in a single draw, which already designs the entire table.

The first and second placed teams in the league phase would not meet again until a hypothetical final.

The increase in first-round matches compared to previous seasons will mean that this phase will be extended and matches will still be played in January. The first round will be exclusive (there will therefore be no Europa League or Conference League matches on those days) and will be played on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. In the last round of this first phase, called the league phase, all the matches will be played simultaneously.

When does the new Champions League start?

The UEFA competition will begin with its new format on Tuesday 17 September. As this change also means more matches for the clubs, the Champions League phase will end in January and not in December as was the case previously with the group stage.

Dates of the new Champions League 2024/25

•   Matchday 1 : September 17, 18 and 19, 2024
•   Matchday 2 : October 1-2, 2024
•   Matchday 3 : October 22-23, 2024
•   Matchday 4 : November 5-6, 2024
•   Matchday 5 : November 26-27, 2024
•   Matchday 6 : December 10-11, 2024
•   Matchday 7 : January 21-22, 2025
•   Matchday 8 (last of the league phase): January 29, 2025
•   Preliminary round match : 11-12 February 2025
•   Preliminary round return : 18-19 February 2025
•   Round of 16 first leg : 4-5 March 2025
•   Round of 16 second leg : 11-12 March 2025
•   Quarterfinals : April 8-9, 2025
•   Quarter-finals : 15-16 April 2025
•   Semi-finals 1st leg : 29-30 April 2025
•   Semi-final second leg : 6-7 May 2025
•   Champions League Final : 31 May 2025 at the Allianz Arena in Munich (Germany)

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