The Champions League is frequently considered the most elite football tournament in the world and it’s watched by millions around the world. The Champions League final averages around 400 million viewers each year. That’stwice as much as the Super Bowl, so it’s no surprise that so many people choose to bet online at GGBET! According to UEFA, part of the reason that the Champions League is so successful is its refusal to stand still and continuously adapt, change, and improve. With that in mind, this year sees the first major format change to the UEFA Champions League since 2003. With a new format, more teams, and hopefully more excitement, this year’s Champions League gets underway on Tuesday 17th September.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Format
In recent years, the Champions League has consisted of 32 teams across 8 groups of 4, before proceeding to a two-leg knockout competition until a final is played at a neutral ground.
This year though, the first half of the tournament is going to look more like an actual league.
After conducting extensive consultation with the key European football stakeholders, the new format will consist of 36 competing clubs that collectively participate in a single league competition.
It’s a bit more complicated than that though, clearly, each club has its own domestic leagues that they participate in over the season so UEFA has instead introduced a format whereby each team will initially play 8 teams once (4 at home, 4 away) and their points that they accumulate across these 8 matches will be compared to every team in the 36 leagues.
Once these 8 games have come to a climax, the league will be separated into 3 segments:
- Teams 1st-8th automatically qualify for the last 16 knockout stages of the tournament (2-tie matches until a 1-leg final in a neutral venue).
- Teams 9th to 24th meanwhile will compete in play-offs (across two legs) to make up the rest of the last 16, and teams 25th to 36th are eliminated from the tournament entirely.
- What this means is that there should be fewer dead rubbers and that almost every team has something to play for until the end of the league phase.
Teams
This year’s UEFA Champions League will see some familiar giants of European football, as well as a few newer teams with the addition of 4 extra teams.
Places for the tournament have been decided on a European coefficient ranking system which UEFA devises and comprises the following teams:
England:
- Arsenal
- Aston Villa
- Liverpool
- Manchester City
Spain:
- Atletico Madrid
- Barcelona
- Girona
- Real Madrid
Italy:
- Atalanta
- Bologna
- Inter
- Juventus
- AC Milan
Germany:
- Borussia Dortmund
- Bayern Munich
- Leipzig
- Leverkusen
- Stuttgart
Portugal:
- Benfica
- Sporting Lisbon
France:
- Brest
- Lille
- Monaco
- Paris Saint Germain
Scotland:
- Celtic
Belgium:
- Club Brugge
Netherlands:
- Feyenoord
- PSV Eindhoven
Slovakia:
- Bratislava
Austria:
- Salzburg
- Sturm Graz
Serbia:
- Crvena Zvezda
Croatia:
- GNK Dinamo
Ukraine:
- Shakhtar
Czechia:
- Sparta Prague
Switzerland:
- Young Boys
Draw
On 29th August, the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 draw took place at the glitzy Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
However, due to the new format and the extension of fixtures, it wasn’t feasible to manually draw every single team like in previous years.
Additionally, the fixtures of the initial league phase have two restrictions:
- A team cannot be drawn against a team from their own association (i.e. Arsenal can’t play Manchester City)
- A team can’t be drawn against two teams from the same association (i.e. Arsenal can’t be drawn against Borussia Dortmund AND Bayern Munich)
The number of permutations therefore meant that having a person physically pick balls to determine the draw would take an extremely long time so it was decided that this year’s draw would combine a human selecting the first 8 teams from pot 1 (the highest ranked teams in the competition), and then a computer would choose the 8 teams that they in turn would play against.
Gianluigi Buffon chose these initial 8 teams from Pot 1 in Monaco, and then Ronaldo pressed a magic button to inform the rest of the teams that the Pot 1 teams would play against.
If this sounds complicated, it is! But what this means is that we will see more matches, more incentives, and hopefully more excitement!
Key Teams to Watch
Last year’s winners Manchester City are currently the bookmaker’s favorites to win back-to-back Champions Leagues with some bookmakers putting them as evens to win the whole thing. Haaland is still scoring for fun and you’d certainly fancy their chances of doing it.
Real Madrid meanwhile isn’t too far behind and their star-studded attacking force of Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe, and Vinicius Junior will be a threat against even the most organized defenses this season.
The market gets a little unsure after these two with Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, and Barcelona making up the 3rd to 6th favorites with very little between them in terms of outright odds to win the Champions League.
At the bottom end, Slovan Bratislava, Crvena Zvezda, Sparta Prague, and Dinamo Zagreb are expected to struggle, but with the new format, anything is possible!
Important Dates and Schedule
Matchday 1 games get underway on Tuesday 17th-19th September with the rest of the league phase matches taking place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays:
- 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
The knockout round play-offs (for teams who finish 9th to 28th) take place on 11th-12th February, and 18th-19th February 2025.
- Last 16 games: 4/5 & 11/12 March 2025
- Quarter-finals: 8/9 & 15/16 April 2025
- Semi-finals: 29/30 April & 6/7 May 2025
The final of the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 will culminate on 31 May 2025 at the Munich Football Arena.
Betting on the UEFA Champions League 2024/25
The UEFA Champions League could be more exhilarating than ever and with more matches, and more top-tier teams facing each other from the start of the tournament, betting online at GGBet presents the opportunity to dial up the excitement even more.
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