This season, the Champions League will adopt a new format, which means that the customary group stage draw will also be discontinued.
Under the new system, there will be 36 teams instead of 32, and each team will play eight matches as part of a single group stage.
The top eight teams from the group stage will advance directly to the round of sixteen, while the teams ranked ninth through twenty-four will compete in the play-off round.
So how will the new group stage draw for the Champions League operate? It turns out there are some parallels with the previous format.
UCL Draws will be decided by AI
The 36 teams will first be seeded into four pots of nine teams each.
The eight fixtures will then be selected by an AI supercomputer created by an English company. It has been programmed to take into account a variety of factors, such as the capacity to keep teams from the same country from playing one other in the group stages.
Journalist Kaveh Solhekol claims that in the first round, clubs can play up to two other clubs from the same nation.
It is stated that the new draw will take only 35 minutes, as opposed to the estimated four hours it would take to complete the draw if it were done by hand.
UEFA is reportedly “confident” that there won’t be a cyberattack on the draw, which is a new problem compared to when it’s done manually.
This season’s English football representatives are Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Aston Villa. The draw will take place in Monte Carlo.
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Germany and Italy each have five teams in the draw thanks to their higher UEFA coefficients from the previous campaign.
Football fans will have to wait and see what role draw maestros Giorgio Marchetti and Pedro Pinto will have in the new automated system.
The 2024–25 Champions League group stage will begin in Monte Carlo on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. UK time.
