Uncompetitive, too many games: Is criticism of new UCL format fair?

We are still only two gameweeks into the new 36-team, one-group UEFA Champions League format, but it has already caused quite a stir.

Change can be difficult to process for soccer fans, especially to long-standing mechanisms in the game, and this latest one has been seismic. In fact, it has ripped up the very fabric of the competition. Whether you like or hate the changes at this early stage, everyone can agree that it still feels a bit weird. But the key question is whether the pushback we’re seeing from fans is a product of typical, initial resistance that will eventually soften, or something deeper.

Here, we’ll take each of the major criticisms that we’ve seen levelled at the new tournament format (which you can see explained here) and try to assess whether they are truly valid, or just a signal of unfamiliarity that will eventually become accepted as time wears on.

1. ‘It’s uncompetitive’

There were some incredible games across the first two gameweeks. To name-check a handful of them: Aston Villa and Lille stunned Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, respectively; 10-man Juventus roared back to beat RB Leipzig 3-2; and Arsenal dispatched Paris Saint-Germain 2-0 with unerring confidence.

There were also some outright drubbings. Dinamo Zagreb were thrashed 9-2 by Bayern; Slovan Bratislava lost 5-1 to Celtic, then followed it up with a 4-0 loss to Manchester City; Celtic went on to lose 7-1 to Borussia Dortmund; while Swiss minnows Young Boys have lost 3-0 to Villa and 5-0 to Barcelona.

For some teams, it has been a brutal start. In the first 36 games, there have been nine wins by a margin of 4-plus goals (and there were eight in the first 27 games), significantly higher than the numbers we’ve seen in the last five editions of the Champions League across the first two matchdays (two, four, four, five, three). This has led to suggestions that the new format has become less competitive, but there’s a couple of things worth bearing in mind here.

First, two gameweeks is a very small sample size. You can get hints from them, but rarely is it advisable to draw conclusions — anyone who works with data would call you mad for doing so. Second, the teams we’ve name-checked on the wrong end of these scorelines are no strangers to this sort of thing.

Take Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb. They finished last in their group in 2022-23, and last in 2019-20. They qualified for the 2016-17 edition and didn’t score a single goal, while conceding 15 to Lyon, Juventus and Sevilla. The year before that, they beat Arsenal 2-1, but lost 3-0, 2-0, 5-0, 1-0 and 2-1 in the other games.

Young Boys have also perfected the art of finishing bottom of a Champions League group, doing so the past two times they qualified in 2021-22 and 2018-19. While Serbia’s Crvena Zvezda, who were beaten 10-2 over two games against PSG in 2018-19, lost their group games by an aggregate score of 9-0 to Bayern and Tottenham in 2019-20. Even Celtic, an iconic European name, finished bottom of their group the last three times they’ve qualified before this season, twice conceding 15 times across their six games and losing 9-0 on aggregate in both games against Barcelona.

All of this is to show, in the context of the scale of European football, that the good teams are still good, and the bad teams are still bad. And bad teams have always been present in the Champions League.

Yes, scorelines have flared up earlier than usual this season, and it will be interesting to see if that’s simply a small sample size or indicative of the fact the tournament has grown from 32 to 36 teams this year, widening the depth of talent from top to bottom. But in the entirety of the group stage in 2022-23, there were 16 thrashings by 4-plus goals, and 14 the year before that, — so we’ll have to see if the trend continues.

As with any data set, there have also been some anomalies. Young Boys, who are 36th in the UCL table with a minus-8 goal difference, won the Swiss Super League in 2024 and beat Galatasaray over two legs in qualifying, but are bizarrely bottom of their domestic league this year with just six points from nine games. So you would expect their form to turn around at some point. Meanwhile, included in the list of nine 4-plus winning margins so far is Benfica’s 4-0 destruction of Spain’s third-best team, Atlético Madrid. Nobody would have predicted that result before the game. So this might be the biggest clue of all that we’d be wise to wait and see what unfolds before rushing to judgement.

VERDICT: Wait and see

2. ‘Losses don’t matter’

Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid have all lost one of their opening two games. Meanwhile, AC Milan and RB Leipzig have lost both of their games so far and are rubbing shoulders with the likes of Crvena Zvezda in the bottom third.

This is bad. Yet the reaction from fans hasn’t been, which suggests many aren’t convinced the losses are that costly at this stage. Given the increased number of games and early feel to the table, no single result feels terminal right now. But fortunately, video games can give us a reference point of what will be required to make the top eight automatic spots.

“Football Manager” baked the new Champions League format into their game two years ago, giving us thousands of simulations to draw upon, and it showed that teams are highly likely to require a minimum of 15 points. There’s a chance that figure could even creep to 16 or 17, too. So if we take 16 as the middle target, that means you need to tick along at an average of two points per game to make it.

Now reconsider the fact that Bayern have already lost to a Pot 4 side (Villa), and face Barcelona, Benfica and PSG in the months to come. Add to that the fact Real Madrid have lost to a Pot 3 side (Lille) and have Dortmund, AC Milan, Liverpool and Atalanta on the horizon. That means there is already very little margin for error for these two titans, as they’ve already dropped three points and are still due to play two Pot 1 fixtures and two Pot 2 fixtures.

Consider the points target, the fixture list and the ground already lost … and these early losses take on a different complexion.

For Europe’s established juggernauts, the old Champions League group stage was often about getting to 10 points and then assessing what was needed to finish top and secure a (theoretically) easier knockout draw. Now, it’s a war of attrition against 10-plus foes; if you can’t churn out the wins now, you might pay for it in February.

VERDICT: Unfair

3. ‘It’s a goals-scored competition’

There’s no escaping that a single 36-team table looks bizarre. However, splitting it horizontally into four sections helps massively when it comes to outlining the different qualification zones and where teams stand.

But one curious complaint from fans is the accusation that the Champions League has turned into a competition that rewards the number of goals scored. That’s likely because the top seven in the table are all on six points and are separated by goal difference and goals scored right now.

This is clearly another quirk of the fact we’re only two gameweeks into the campaign; it is highly unlikely that even one team wins all eight games — let alone seven of them.

In the old format, with eight different groups of four, no one would have batted an eyelid if seven teams won their opening two fixtures because they weren’t being directly compared together. As ever, points gained will be the real separator, with goal difference kicking in to divide a handful of clubs if needed.

It’s also worth highlighting that an incentive to score as many goals as possible is actually good for the game. Fans love seeing goals and, as illustrated earlier, we are seeing plenty right now.

While the table may not make pleasant reading for those whose clubs find themselves in a difficult position, neutrals should be encouraged by the fact that three of the seven perfect teams (Brest, Villa, Bayer Leverkusen) weren’t even in the Champions League last season. It’s fresh, it’s different, and it piles pressure on those who have not started well.

VERDICT: Unfair

4. ‘There are too many games’

The most disappointing aspect of this new format for some fans is how it has added more games to an already stacked calendar.

There are now eight matches instead of six in the group stage, and any team placing 9th to 24th will have to play twice more in a playoff to reach the round of 16. Ultimately, those teams will have played 10 games to get there — whereas in the old format, it would have been just six. And, in the event a playoff team go on to win the Champions League, they’ll have played 17 games in total — which would have been just 13 last year.

Furthermore, every team will play twice during the transfer window in January. And that is just weird.

It’s a lot. And it comes at a time where some players have openly spoken about the possibility of going on strike due to the number of games. Indeed, Manchester City’s Rodri and Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois have confirmed that the players’ union, FIFPRO, has filed a legal claim against FIFA on this matter.

Perhaps the true driving force for this was the unveiling of the new 32-team FIFA Club World Cup, set to take place in summer 2025, alongside regulations designed to stop clubs leaving their best players at home. But UEFA sneaking extra games into the new Champions League format will have been a factor, too.

This one is pretty much indefensible.

VERDICT: Fair

5. ‘Playing eight different opponents is too much’

The old group stage format gave teams just three opponents to play twice, home and away. Now it’s eight opponents and they’re all different; there’s no return fixture to consider, a much longer list of fixtures to remember, and more of a carbon footprint involved in getting to them all.

The positive is that it adds great variety to the fixture list. If UEFA’s goal was to remove early elements of repetition in games and create a more overarching continental feel to teams’ experiences in the tournament, they’ve certainly hit that brief.

The negative is that it leaves fans unable to benchmark their team’s potential progress to the knockout stages early on, as it’s very difficult for anyone to figure out who they’re supposed to be competing with in the table. There’s also something odd about a league of teams whose points tallies compete against each other, but who don’t all play against each other. Perhaps some fans also miss the “grudge match” element of a return fixture in a group too, which is forever gone now.

VERDICT: Wait and see

6. ‘The draw was terrible’

For those who were sceptical of the new format, watching an abomination of a draw process won’t have helped one bit. Clearly, the new format is more technical to draw out and far less suited to UEFA’s traditional method of broadcasting.

But what we witnessed was a mess that was so tough to follow, even Cristiano Ronaldo consistently slamming a giant button over and over again couldn’t save it.

UEFA can’t conduct the draw privately and relay the results later, as there would inevitably be accusations of fixing, but they have a year to figure out a different way to make the draw broadcastable. The first effort was shocking.

VERDICT: Fair