UEFA needed to find a workable solution for completing the 2019-20 Champions League after the competition was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They settled on a format that brought the final eight teams to Lisbon and they competed in a knockout tournament to determine the new champion. Two second-leg matches from the round of 16 were also played in Lisbon ahead of the quarterfinals. Did the pandemic provide UEFA with an unintended benefit: a new and better way of running the knockout stage of the tournament?
Ever since the European Cup morphed into the Champions League in 1992, all of the changes have been rooted in trying to extract as much revenue from the tournament as possible. What had been a tournament that was reserved exclusively for the champion of every European league is now a financial vehicle for Europe’s biggest and richest clubs. Many European champions don’t even have direct access to the Champions League anymore. What had been a straight knockout tournament now features a group stage of six rounds, followed by a 16-team knockout stage with a two-leg format up until the final. To make it simple, more matches means more revenue, more tickets to sell, and more content to offer to TV broadcasters.
Running the knockout stage at a neutral venue is a far superior format to playing two legs at each team’s stadium, at least in competitive terms. Playing two legs gives each team a game on their home ground, and playing a second match gives TV broadcasters another event to monetize. Seems like a scenario where everyone wins, right? Not really.
The two-leg format is inherently messy from a competition standpoint. If both matches end up in a draw, or each team wins a match, there is no clear winner. The away-goals rule often resolves the series, or 30 minutes of extra time are added to the second leg to break the logjam. If none of that works, then the tried and true practice of penalty kicks sends the winner into the next round.
Coaches’ tactics are a significant contributor to this mess. A series over two legs can be approached as a 180-minute match, with halftime coming at the conclusion of the first leg. Depending on whether they are home or away in the first leg, coaches will often try to make the first leg manageable to get a particular result to bring into the second leg. For example, a team playing away in the first leg might take an overly defensive approach, sit back and try to squeeze out an away goal. It’s not unusual for a coach to be satisfied with a 2:1 away defeat in the first leg because of the value placed on that away goal. And a 1:0 win at home in the return match would send that team to the next round.
What ever happened to trying to win the game? In a win-or-go-home format, this kind of manipulation would be eliminated. If a team thought they could help themselves by playing defensively, they might do so at their own peril, go down a goal, and then struggle to get back into the game. In Portugal, we saw teams getting after it and realizing that winning was the only option. The desperation of facing elimination makes players play better and forces coaches to adopt winning strategies.
Critics will find two significant flaws in a knockout stage played at a neutral venue: (1) it takes matches away from supporters; and (2) it reduces the number of matches that TV broadcasters can put on the air. Let’s look at these obstacles one at a time.
Everyone has heard, “football without fans is nothing” more times than they can remember. The adage was trotted out quite frequently in the past few months as teams prepared to resume their seasons by playing matches in empty stadiums. But only the most naive fans will think that the game’s power brokers are running the sport for the benefit of spectators. The universal language of soccer is money and this is the path that club owners will always follow. How many times have Europe’s big clubs floated the idea of a European Super League, a scenario which would result in each league’s best teams withdrawing from their national championship and only playing against one another. Pretty fan-friendly, right? If running the knockout stage of the Champions League would generate more revenue at a neutral site than playing in home stadiums, you can be sure that the matches would be taken away from the home fans.
Making up for the reduced number of matches in the knockout stage is a trickier problem to solve. The current structure is a cash cow for UEFA and they certainly don’t want less money flowing into their bank account. Convincing people to move away from the two-leg format would be a case of, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” A great example of a knockout tournament whose games are played at neutral venues and that generates huge sums of money is the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. There is no reason that UEFA couldn’t market the Champions League in a similar fashion. It may be too radical to shift the entire knockout stage to single elimination at a neutral venue, but a good start might be to bring the semifinals and final to the same venue. Shining the spotlight on the last four teams and stretching the three matches over a week would generate lots of interest because all of the teams are at one location. In this set-up, UEFA are only sacrificing the two second legs of the semifinals. Concentrating all of the attention on a single location might result in higher viewership than the current structure. UEFA has already done a “final four” with the first edition of the Nations League, so there is some precedent.
The two-leg format is an obtuse and archaic competition structure. It does nothing to promote attacking and entertaining soccer . It forces coaches to adopt cynical tactics, where they look for ways to advance, rather than ways to win games. None of this is good for soccer, so the win-or-go-home format needs consideration from soccer’s administrative bodies.
(Photo: AFP/Javier Soriano)
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