The one-off format, created to end the season promptly following the worldwide suspension of sports by the coronavirus. It has already caused several upheavals, with Manchester City and Atletico Madrid being dumped out by Lyon and RB Leipzig, respectively.
Aleksander Ceferin about the more exciting one-legged knockout format of UCL
UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin has said he is convinced that the current one-legged knockout format of the Champions League quarter-finals and semi-finals should be seen as a face-to-face adaptation in the tournament, as it is, in his opinion. , “more exciting”. The one-off format, created to end the season promptly following the worldwide suspension of sports by the coronavirus. It has already caused several upheavals, with Manchester City and Atletico Madrid being dumped out by Lyon and RB Leipzig, respectively. Eight teams headed to Lisbon in August to play leftover fixtures on neutral ground to avoid squabbling over the home and away advantages. So Čeferin believes having only one game to get through makes for more exciting matches.
It’s a pretty good experience for UEFA
“We were forced to do this, but in the end, we see that we learned something special and new. So we will think about it in the future for sure,” Čeferin said in an interview. “There weren’t that many tactics. If this is one match, if one team scores, the other must score as soon as possible. If this is a two-legged system, then there is still time to win the next match. I must say that this system of one game seems more interesting than the other system with legged games. But again, let’s see, it’s too early to say anything about it. “Because the Champions League used to be interesting. How it’s also interesting, it’s a pretty good experience if you still have to think about changing what works well anyway.
So it does not pressure that something is not working and we have to change it. We should not change anything, but we have new ideas”. Čeferin did warn that squads could lose out of broadcast earnings if there would be fewer games to screen. “More exciting games for sure, but of course we also have to think about the fact that we have fewer matches and broadcasters can say ‘you don’t have as many matches as before, this is different’. So we will have to discuss when this crazy situation is over,” Aleksander added.