Champions League returns with a new format. The best way to understand it? Don’t even try

For decades, the UEFA Champions League group stage began annually on the second or third Tuesday in September, and in 2024 … well, to some degree, here we go again.

Soccer’s preeminent club competition returns this week to 12 countries across Europe and billions of screens globally. Real Madrid opens yet another title defense. Liverpool visits AC Milan. Juventus and Aston Villa, back after absences short and long, headline Tuesday’s curtain-raisers (12:45 p.m. ET, Paramount+).

But this, the start of the 2024-25 “Champions League proper,” is not a group stage — because there are no groups.

It’s a “league phase” that will likely confuse the hell out of viewers who try to comprehend it — so the best approach, for now, is probably to not even try.

The best approach is to watch the games, and appreciate the football, and know that if Atalanta beats Arsenal on Thursday (3 p.m. ET, Paramount+), that matters.

If Girona upsets PSG on Wednesday in Paris, the upstart Spaniards will improve their odds of reaching the knockout rounds.

The results of Manchester City-Inter Milan (Wednesday, 3 p.m. ET), and Monaco-Barcelona (Thursday, 3 p.m. ET), and a dozen other games should be meaningful.

But they’ll mean less than early Champions League games used to mean. Specific implications won’t become clear until January. Organizers have introduced a new format that could ultimately make the competition more entertaining. For now, though, it will just be more difficult to decipher.

The new Champions League format

The Champions League, of course, used to be beautifully simplistic. Eight groups of four; play each opponent twice; top two advance.

Then UEFA went in search of more — more games, more teams, more showdowns between superclubs, more money. It expanded the field (from 32 to 36), and settled on a so-called “Swiss format” most commonly used in chess tournaments.

Now, there is one big group of 36. There are eight games apiece instead of six. And there are no pods, no clusters or groupings, no head-to-head element.

Arsenal, for example, starts at Atalanta, then plays PSG, Shakhtar Donetsk, Inter Milan, Sporting CP (Lisbon), Monaco, Dinamo Zagreb and Girona.

Atalanta starts with Arsenal, then plays Shakhtar Donetsk, Celtic, Stuttgart, BSC Young Boys, Real Madrid, Sturm Graz and Barcelona.

Previously, Arsenal had to be better than two of its three group opponents. Now, it has to finish in the top 24 of 36 teams to reach the knockout rounds; and the top 8 to skip directly into the Round of 16.

In other words, groups have been replaced by a single league table. And at the end of the truncated season — the eight-game “league phase” — a team’s position in the table determines its fate:

• 1st-8th: Qualify for the Round of 16

• 9th-16th: Play-in round vs. inferior team (from the 17th-24th bucket below)

• 17th-24th: Play-in round vs. superior team (from the 9th-16th bucket above)

• 25th-36th: Eliminated

Clubs will slide up and down the single table as they win and lose games. The table will be a fixture on broadcasts and social media, helping teams and their fans assess progress. If you’d like to understand the format, and track your club’s standing, and gauge knockout-round hopes, the table is your best bet.

But, with the schedule unbalanced and the “league” so bloated, the table will also be crowded and deceptive. For most of the “season,” 25th place (elimination) and 8th (bye) will likely be separated by less than six points — less than two games.

Worrying about specific competitors and placements, therefore, will be pointless. Focusing on the broader picture will be futile. The only certainty — and the only lens through which to view these early rounds — is that three points are better than one, and one better than zero.

What will it take to qualify for knockout rounds?

If you’d like to track progress in the early rounds, focus on thresholds.

We don’t know who will be the team to beat to crack the top eight, but we can predict how many points will be required. History and simulations suggest that the thresholds will be, approximately:

• 1st-8th: 16+ points

• 9th-16th: 12-16 points

• 17th-24th: 9-12 points

• 25th-36th: 0-9 points

In other words: Win six of your eight games, and you’re into the Round of 16; win five of eight, and you have a decent chance.

Win four, and you’ll head to the play-in round; win three, and you’ll likely sneak in as well.

There is no way to guess whom you’ll sneak in ahead of; so, for seven of eight rounds, there is no sense in caring about scenarios or foes. There is no need to glance ahead at matchups. There is only a need to win — and try to hit those targets (say, 17 points, or 10).

If groups were a six-lap, four-man race around a track, this is essentially an eight-lap time trial; and the qualifying cut, the time to beat, is projectable but not quite fixed, and entirely out of any one team’s control.

The cynical view of the Champions League

The cynical view of this gluttonous format is that it will be a roundabout route to a familiar destination.

Does it really matter if Bayern Munich drops a few games, or Man City slips out of the top eight?

They would surely run roughshod over Celtic or Brugge, or whichever overmatched opponent they draw in the play-in round.

The half-dozen true contenders, the ones with multiples more money than everybody else, will surely finish in the top 24; and likely end up in the latter stages, no matter where, exactly, they finish in this “league phase.” Because they almost always do.

But the romantic view is that the Champions League isn’t all about the superclub that wins it. It’s about deafening European nights at Celtic Park, and tricky trips to Prague or Zagreb. It’s about the stage that Aston Villa and Stuttgart and Bologna and Girona and Brest now get to share with Liverpool, Bayern, Juventus, Barcelona and PSG. It’s about stories like Shakhtar Donetsk, and erstwhile giants like Crvena zvezda (Red Star Belgrade). It’s about Feyenoord and a dozen other clubs who now, unlike before, can realistically aim for the knockout stages — and dream.

How to watch Champions League games

All of them begin their campaigns this week, on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

On Matchday 2, in early October, the familiar Tuesday-Wednesday rhythm resumes, with nine games each day — two at 12:45 p.m. ET, seven at 3 p.m. ET — and the Europa League and Conference League on Thursdays.

Paramount+ and CBS networks will broadcast all of it to the United States in English. The Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S. is Telemundo.

The betting favorites are the last two champions: Manchester City and Real Madrid.