The Shin Guardian's Champion's League format post got me thinking about how they could make some changes to make the competition a little more exciting. As I commented in their post, I think reverting back to the knockout format for the entire competition is a great idea. Here's how I think it should go (by the way thanks for allowing me to exercise my nerdiness):

- Champions of the top 8 leagues, according to the UEFA Coefficients are granted automatic entry into the final field of 32 as #1 seeds.
This would give us the following 8 teams, sorted by league not club coefficients:
1 - England – Man United
2 - Spain – Barca
3 - Italy – Inter
4 - France – Bordeaux
5 - Germany – Wolfsburg
6 - Russia – Rubin Kazan
7 - Romania - Unirea
8 - Portugal - Porto

- The rest of the 66 clubs who are part of the competition (that's right 74 clubs participate in this competition) are put into a bucket and drawn at random, no seeding. No preferrential treatment for the bigger leagues.

- Draw the first 36 clubs from the bucket, and a matchup number (1-18) from a second bucket; these will be the first qualifying round matchups. The remaining 30 clubs and matchup numbers 1-18 will be drawn, as well as a matchup number (19-42) from a third bucket to determine the second qualifying round matchups. Taking into consideration, as best as possible, that teams from the same confederation/league cannot be paired together in the two qualifying rounds.

- Once the field of 32 is set, the 8 league champions will be ranked according to their club, not league, coefficients and placed into a bracket. All of the other clubs will be seeded into pots 1, 2, and 3 according to their club coefficients, and instead of randomly drawing the groups together, clubs will be assigned as follows: the champions group will be paired with a team pot #3 in an inverse order (top of the champions group plays the bottom of pot #3), and the champions group will be paired with a team from pot #1 in an inverse manner. Pot #1 will be paired with the similarly ranked team from pot #2. Taking into account that teams from the same league/confederation cannot be in the same "group". Once these "groups" are determined the bracket is set, no scandalous (seriously how many times can Chelsea and Liverpool meet in the final 8 of the Champion's League) draws for each knockout round.

- All ties will be played in a home and away fashion with the away goals rule in effect. No more 2 games against each team in your group. This would also remove the ridiculous scheduling convention that the Champions League currently uses where you play team a, then team b, then team c twice in a row, then team a, and finally team b. Who the hell is running the Champions League that they continue to allow this most assanine scheduling.

In case you're wondering, this is what it would look like (using only the 32 clubs who made it through to the Champion's League proper).

Left Side of the Bracket:
(1) 1 - Barcelona
4 - Debreceni
2 - Lyon (according to coefficients Real Madrid should be here)
3 - Stuttgart

(8) 1 - Unirea
4 - Fiorentina
2 - Chelsea
3 - CSKA

(4) 1 - VFL Wolfsburg
4 - Maccabi Haifa
2 - Sevilla
3 - Olympiacos

(5) 1 - Bordeaux
4 - Standard Liege
2 - Arsenal
3 - Juventus

Right Side of the Bracket:
(2) 1 - Manchester United
4 - APOEL
2 - Real Madrid
3 - Dynamo Kiev

(7) 1 - Porto
4 - Atletico Madrid
2 - Liverpool
3 - AZ Alkmaar

(3) 1 - Inter Mila
4 - Zurich
2 - Bayern Munchen
3 - Marseille

(6) 1 - Rubin Kazan
4 - Besiktas
2 - AC Milan
3 - Rangers (should be Juventus according to coefficients)

(***Sorry this is captured in words, the picture that I created was not working within blogger***)

Giving the top 8 league champions (according to the UEFA Coefficients) automatic entry into the final group of 32 would put much more emphasis on winning your league (notice the holders do not get an automatic berth in the competition anymore), as long as it's in the top 8 in Europe. This format would also give teams in smaller leagues with smaller budgets more of an opportunity to advance, thus enhancing their league's coefficient, which would eventually possibly lead to an automatic berth.

I do think most of the G-14 will balk at the idea. Can you imagine an out-of-form Liverpool getting dumped out before October? Merseysiders and Reds supporters would spontaneously cry about being denied a fair opportunity and then combust. Let’s face it the Reds love their 11th hour heroics, and if we denied them hours 3-10 they’d never get there, and then where would Stevie G's career be? The one issue I can foresee with this format is more "parking of the bus" given the home-and-away format, but the cream will ultimately rise to the top.

For those wondering about the total number of matches would come out to 146 compared to the 221 that are currently being played (calculated from the group stages on as those are the only ones currently televised). As for the revenue generated from this new format, I actually think it'll increase as more people would be tuning into more of their club's matches because they may not live to fight on, and more people would actually be showing up to games (Seriously AC Milan supporters you couldn't even fill the San Siro 2/3rds full last night. That's pure shenanigannery!)

Anyways, let me know what you think...

P.S. - If your wondering why only 8 league champions instead of the 13 or so that UEFA currently grants automatic entry to, it fit much nicer into my 8 groups of 4 bracket.