The UEFA Champions League is back with a few big changes – including the days fixtures are played on.
Arsenal fans would have noticed that their first European match – a difficult away game in Italy against Europa League champions Atalanta – isn’t scheduled for the Tuesday or Wednesday spot that has become customary in the competition. Instead, the two sides will face off on Thursday evening.
That’s only three days before the Gunners head to the Etihad Stadium to reignite their title-chasing rivalry with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, and four days after their 1-0 away win in the North London Derby.
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Fans of other clubs in the newly structured competition may be wondering if they’ll also have to watch their teams play on a Thursday – a day typically reserved for the Europa and Conference League. But that will not be the case.
As part of the new league format, governing body UEFA has declared that each of their three competitions will have an exclusive matchweek during which fixtures from the other two tournaments won’t take place. This exclusive window has been designated as matchweek 1 for the Champions League, meaning only UCL fixtures will be played this week.
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UEFA have decided to spread the matches over three days instead of the usual two, so games will be played on Thursday. But this will only occur for this unique game week and won’t happen again. Both the Europa League and the Europa Conference League will also have allotted weeks where only their matches will be played.
The changes to the Champions League don’t stop there, however. As stated, teams will play eight group games, four at home and four away, though each of those ties will be against different teams.
Instead of the traditional eight groups of four, each team has been placed into a single league. The top eight finishers will automatically advance to the round of 16.
(Image: UEFA via Getty Images)
Teams finishing from ninth to 24th will enter a two-legged knockout phase. If they win, they’ll move on to face one of the teams which has already progressed. Sides who fall to 25th place or lower of the 36 will be eliminated from the respective competition outright, and there will be no pathway downward to lesser tournaments as there has been in previous years.
Mikel Arteta’s Gunners aren’t the only English team in action this week when they head to Bergamo. Aston Villa will travel to Switzerland to face Young Boys at an earlier time of 17:45 on Tuesday, while Liverpool are set to play AC Milan later in the evening.
Manchester City also welcome Inter Milan, the team they faced in the competition’s final two years ago, on Wednesday night. All 500 of this year’s Champions League matches will be broadcasted on TNT Sports.