By Yaseen Jangikhan
The new Champions League format is now set and ready to go. The bracket system is completely different, now including 36 teams competing in the tournament for a chance to win the championship, meaning the number of teams was increased by 4. The teams qualify for the tournament by placing in at least the top 4 in their domestic league, and the top 4 teams in the top 5 leagues world-wide will qualify automatically. The 4 other new spots will be earned via an early playoff before the actual tournament starts.
In this new format, the teams will play around eight matches, so there will be no more playing the same three different opponents twice, which ended with one home game and one away game for each of those three different teams. However, it will conclude eight different teams that will play each other, including 4 games at home and 4 away. These teams will be determined by their ranking in the 4 seeding spots. Then, each team will play two different opponents from each spot (one at home and one game away). This will make the games more challenging and will make the clubs face a different variety of opponents.
The top eight teams in the league will qualify for the round of 16. Then, the teams ranked 9-24 will battle for a spot in the round of 16. The teams ranked 25-26 automatically are out of the tournament. Each two teams that play each other will get to play each other twice. It will also be like that for the teams that qualify for the quarterfinal and semifinal, but the final is only played in one game.
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