Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain could be knocked out of the Champions League tomorrow night. So thank God for the tournament’s new format, or so say the pundits. Yes, there’s the glee that most football fans feel when two of Europe’s petro state-owned superclubs are struggling. But the pundits also see Man City’s scrambling as a vindication of the Champions League’s face-lift. Finally, an end to the ‘bore fest we’ve had for years’, says pundit Jamie Carragher. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype and even easier to forget the great tournaments of the past few seasons. Nevertheless, the suits at UEFA – European football’s governing body – decided the tournament needed ‘more drama’ and ‘more entertainment’, so they turned the group stage into a mini-league by squeezing in extra games and then topped it off by adding another qualifying round after that as well.
This is the ‘Swiss model’, which was originally developed to organise Zurich chess tournaments in the 1890s.
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