2024-25 UEFA Champions League

I don’t think this is correct. Have you a link on that?

Wow, that’s very different to what I’d read upto now. Gonna have to look further to see which is actually correct.

On the UEFA website they have the following slides

So it looks like there is a little bit more nuance to it - in that there will be some kind of draw (note the "1 or 2") but the seedings will determine that path and the teams higher up will get the advantage by playing lower ranked teams on their path to the final. So #1 looks like they'd play #15 and #7 en-route to the semi-finals (if those teams won their earlier matches)

source

OK, so putting all that together. The group finishes up in January.

Then there will be a draw on 31st of January that will determine which side of the draw the teams in the play-offs (#9-#24) go into.

So #17 will either be placed on the Left side of the bracket or the right side, with #18 ending up on the opposite side

Left side

Right-Side

Same goes for the pairing of #15/#16.

By putting those teams on one side or the other that will also confirm who plays who in the play-off round.

So going into the draw each team will know that they have one of 2 possible opponents and one of two possible sides of the draw.

After this draw is completed each of the teams ranked #9-#24 will know where they stand in the bracket in relation to all of those other teams. It'll still be a bit unknown though because the teams ranked #1-#8 won't have been allocated to one side or the other.

The two play-off ties will be played in February and after they're completed the final draw of the competition takes place (on Feb 21st). That draw will put the 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 & 7/8 pairings on the Left or Right hand side. Once that's done it both completes the Last 16 ties and also locks in the future fixtures for the rest of the competition.

I wonder why they don't do the #1-#8 pairings at the same time as the rest. Creating a bit of suspense perhaps?

The other dates are just match dates.

From the link that you provided:

The more I think about it the more I like the knockout seeding aspect:

1. Under the old system a lot of the top teams had already won their groups by matchday #6 (or even #5). Now they'll have every incentive to finish as high as possible so all the games should be competitive in the League phase
2. With the open draw there existed a real possibility of teams getting much softer paths to the final than others. Now you cannot get to a final without beating one of the top 2 ranked teams or beating the team that knocked them out (unless you were one of the top 2 ranked teams yourself, in which case you'll need to beat the third of forth ranked team (or their conquerors))

On the final game week of the League phase all matches will be played simultaneously. It's going to be very exciting as teams move up or down between different quarters and seedings due to goals coming in from other games. Almost guaranteed that with 16 matches being played at once that there will be some pivotal last minute drama.

The thing is that what seeding pot you are in no longer confers any advantage.

Everyone's 8 games will have 2 games v Pot1 teams, and 2 games v Pot2, Pot3 & Po4.

So Aston Villa in Pot 4 can expect to have as difficult/easy a set of fixtures as Liverpool or City in Pot 1.

Looking forward to some "unique" fixtures out of this lot. Bologna and Aston Villa look like the only Pot 4 teams that might hope to make the last 24, for me. Pot 3 looks weak enough. The first two pots must be thinking that they should all make the knockouts.

This is 100% guaranteed to happen.

If Madrid and City get drawn to play each other: "Fix!"

If they instead get drawn against Leipzig: "Fix!"

It's so very very tiring

All games between top teams are going to be a dead rubber when 24 teams qualify and only 12 are eliminated after 8 games each.

Well there's a big incentive to finish Top 8, and avoid the extra 2 games in February. At a minimum they are inconvenient games for scheduling purposes. If you lose both Pot1 games then you are going to struggle for Top 8 so they shouldn't be dead rubbers.

There's a lesser incentive to finish first or second as this gives you a theoretically better route through the knockout part of the competition.