Celtic and the new-look UEFA Champions League | Format, draw, dates, knockout chances & more

Intro okay everyone as promised today we are taking a look at the UEFA Champions League and what this new look competition has in store for Celtic this season and it's a pretty complex let's just say but uh as always with these kind of UEFA explainer videos I do I try and make it very very simple so that a Rangers Fan could understand it for example though maybe that's asking for a bit too much certainly I always say you should be able to understand it uh you've been in your night out Friday night it's about 3:00 a.m. you're sitting in your living room Don or hogi in front of you you're steaming uh you're watching this you should still be able to understand it but if that is you get yourself up to bed you're embarrassing yourself did you know that the UFA Champions League format has changed for this season I hope the answer to that is yes if it is no we've got a lot of work to do in this video um yes new formats come in as I say there's a a bit to talk about and explain in fact David Logan got in touch saying I want Stevie to explain it David unfortunately Stevie is not on today so you'll have to make do with me what F even in he I know wait it's morning is it Anyway don't worry about that I believe I was tasked by you via someone in the comments on the Community page on the Celtic am channel to try and explain the draw or facts about it right and everybody sees me as an ignis rightly so but I did do a bit of reading on it and and C us and AD Guide to the draw I'm try and condense it all in 60 seconds so we go for a timer starting now right the dates are going to be played there's going to be games in September all the way to the end of January so yeah I was stunned by this I thought it was going to be September to like the start of January but there's only one game in December I believe two in January one in October two in November in two September I hope I've got that right um the the money the pot right 75% of the pot for all UEFA competitions goes to world the Champions League um this season and I think for a win you get 2.1 million and 700k for a draw which the Celtic Bard will be 11 I better hurry up here right and so instead of the barding H groups of four eight groups of four there's going to be the big super league group that you could really create in the old sensible soccer uh 1 to8 go straight into The Knockout stage and then 9 to 24 it's a playoff and if you win the playoff hold on I'm looking know a million pound if you even win a playoff game and then if you get to a knockout 16 11 million per club and then after that the money just goes up and up so there you go that's a we fullprof guide to it hope that's what you were after heish yep a great guide Stevie I think everything you said there was factually correct even if you were a bit obsessed with the months and read them out in a a strange order I appreciate you uh sending that in Stevie thank you hopefully you're you're happy David um yes the 32 group stage is no Format more as Stevie says it's been replaced by one single League of 36 teams we actually now know 32 of those 36 teams the final four will be confirmed tonight but this is what we're looking at right now there we are in partt three yes partt three brilliant stuff but it doesn't actually really matter because the pots are not really too important for this draw that's because each team there will be drawing against two teams from each poort including their own so Celtic will face two of those teams in part one one of them will be at Celtic Park one will be away from home we'll face two teams from Port two one at Celtic Park one away from home two teams from Port three one at Celtic Park one away from home and two teams from p 4 One at Celtic park I think you know the rest it's say one away from home so we'll have a total of eight matches four at home for away from home uh every result will be plumbed into this giant 36 Team league table which is H going to be a hell of a sight to look at a league table with 36 teams you know like in big leagues Europe or England you have a top and a bottom it's going to need to split it up into like four parts I think but anyway it's it's hardly the the biggest issue at the end of all this so after every team has played eight games the top eight teams will be put through Straight to the round of 16 the next 16 teams below them so that's places 9 to 24 we'll be through to the Playoff round that's the one that Brandon Rogers has been very public and targeting he thinks Celtic can and should be there uh so that'll be 16 teams they play off against each other with the eight winners joining the eight that have already qualified to make the round of 16 are you getting me hopefully yes uh another thing you should hopefully know by now the bottom 12 teams in the league so if you finish 25th or lower uh you're eliminated from Europe altogether so no drop out or drop into the Europa League like we had previously so we need to finish in the top 24 if we want to have any knockout matches this season from The Knockout rounds and I'm not going to spend too long in this because um it's not relevant right now to Celtic and based on our recent European record there's a chance it might not be relevant at all but anyway once we get to the knockout rounds there'll be a a seeding system in place a bit like tennis so you'll basically have like um if we were to finish 24th in the big league for example would likely be drawn against ninth uh so like the best of that section in the next knockout round so that's how they're doing it kind of think like tennis how the big players like Novak jovic Carlos alarz don't play um the big guns until later on they're trying to do the same thing with the Champions League from The Knockout round onwards I think they are still planning some sort of a draw in a weird way but we listen we don't need to worry about that for now we'll worry about that when Celtic have H convincingly qualified for the Knockouts e right 36 teams Celtic will Draw play eight of them once I've seen a few people suggest that there's like UFA is going to split this into like groups even though we don't have actual groups are still going to split teams into groups there's no groups no groups at all this is like basically uh going to be random we can play two teams from each po obviously there are a few restrictions in that Eden O'Brien asking is there a limit on how many teams from the same country you can play H yes Aiden H teams from the same country can't face each other uh so uh Manchester City couldn't draw Arsenal for example at all uh yeah that obviously doesn't affect us cuz we're the only Scottish team in the draw Daniel Fraser was wondering if Rangers will be participating in the draw no H Daniel they've got their we draw on Friday to find out what other wi teams that they can face um so they have to wait until Friday for that so no uh basically that means that every other of the teams so all other 35 teams are options for us we could face any of them however there is a restriction on the amount of teams from the same country that you can play which I think is what Aden was getting at with his question and that restrict is at a maximum of two so that basically means we could face two teams from England uh two teams from Germany two teams from Spain you couldn't face any more so we're not going to be draw with Arsenal Manchester City uh who's the other teams Aston Villa and Liverpool I think yeah we're not going to be drawing against all four of them we could only play a maximum with two English teams we could only play a maxim two German teams Two Italian team two two Spanish teams Etc again hopefully that's pretty simple just moving to the draw itself H it will take place at the rather plush Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo uh and that will be conducted at 5:00 p.m. Celtic Park time on Thursday UEFA says that the actual draw will take 35 minutes I believe that's how long the actual draw took last year unfortunately for all us UEFA hasn't worked in all the time they spend Fanning about during that draw before during and after all the Daft Awards they give out the Daft interviews we're still going to have to put up all of that the draw will still probably take about an hour and a half if not longer but the actual um draw itself the important part they reckon will take 35 minutes now the draw will be almost entirely automated this year uh as I understand it they'll start with partt one and basically the nine team will each you know have have the we bit of paper inside the ball there'll be nine balls in the pot for for pot one and the the bit of the draw that is actually manual will be someone will go in and uh and pick out one of the balls so save for pop one save first out the hat is Real Madrid a button will then be pressed and voila you'll get um all of Real Madrid's eight fixtures up on screen so as much as we'll have to wait till po three bows are dra to find out all of our fixtures like we will know some of our fixtures by that point because they'll come up from other teams so like Real Madrid's fixtures could come up and it'll be like uh Arsenal away Bayern Munich at home uh Aston Villa away I'm running out with teams here and then bang Celtic away from home and we'll be like oh wow we're playing Real Madrid and our ball hasn't even been called yet so basically you need to switch on for all of this draw and if you're good good at maths like me you'll know that by the time we get to Port three and Celtics ball is drawn we'll already know four of eight fixtures we then find out the other four when that button is pressed and you see all of our fixtures there but they're Fixtures/Schedule not the final fixtures and dates and all of that kind of stuff Aon Jack got in touch do you know when we will be told what Homer away fixtures are for booking up it used to be the following day but is it now straight away as soon as the draw is finished no you're not going to know straight away H the teams will come out you'll know the teams that we're going to face I think we'll know what one what one of them are at home which ones are away as well but they're not going to be in the order that the fixtures are actually going to be played H we'll have to wait until Saturday unfortunately to H find out a fixture order dates and times as well uh in short this is so that you w can like balance loads of different things they have going on like for example um making sure that teams from the same city aren't at home on the same night like we aren't playing at Celtic Park and the same night Rangers are playing at I Brooks for example and I know straight away you're thinking on no but they're Thursday nights we're Tuesday and Wednesdays in the main yes but there's a little bit of a um change to that as well that I'll come on to in a little bit of a second um little bit of a second oh my brain's fried anyway UEFA also want to balance the fixture so they don't want say Celtic for example starting with uh Real Madrid away Manchester City home they don't want like the two pot one teams H coming out first like they wanted to be balanced so you'd maybe get pop one team in match day two and match day five or match day three in match day six something like that I don't know if that's going to be possible it seems like a hell of a headache for people at UEFA but I believe they've drafted in quite a well-known company to run the software and they've got Ernst and Young is that the the financial company we've got them involved as well to make sure everything is like Fair they're going to be doing a report on it afterwards can't wait to read that I'm sure that'll be riveting um yeah just on the uh on the schedule stuff that I've kind of hinted at already Gerard Bailey uh I think I'd heard that matches on Match day one will be played on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday the other match days would be on Tuesday and Wednesday only one can you confirm if this is the case two find out the rationale for this is it for some kind of match day one Showcase of the new format yes you're you're bang on Gerald uh match day one of the Champions League will be played across three days Tuesday 17th of September Wednesday 18th of September Thursday 19th of September this is because each uh UEFA competition so Champions League Europa League conference League we'll all have an exclusive match day during the league phase where the other two competitions don't have matches that week basically gives them all a a a kind of showcase week basically the Champions League's one is on Match Day One H hence the 3-day fixture card um yeah Tuesday Wednesday Thursday match days 2 to 7 will'll be back to the normal Tuesday to Wednesday that we become accustomed to the Champions League however the final match day we'll see every team playing at the same time 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 29th of January that's for obvious reasons because like results could be affecting each other and you don't want teams going out knowing what result they need it makes sense for every match to be at the same time uh and just on H the kickoff times noal change there it'll be 8:00 p.m. mainly uh each day we'll see two matches getting an early kickoff 5:45 p.m. Celtic Park time so we'll have some early kickoffs I think certainly our four matches at Celtic Park will be 8:00 p.m. that's usually I think we're like the kind of British teams they tend to keep the home matches at 8:00 p.m. maybe a couple of away matches wa 545 right Other stuff big tone 9480 asking the important question heh do you think this new Champions League format will be an improvement on the old format I know there's more matches to play which could provide Financial benefits but I think that that could come at a cost domestically what do you think big man uh big tone I fail to see any down side to this new format that's my my genuine opinion I know a lot of people don't like change and they'll say maybe um you know the group stage wasn't broken so why try to fix it um I think this is going to be a lot better I mean simple Point uh you obviously you enjoy every Celtic game you're up for every Celtic game but what are the ones that really really get you going Derby potentially like you know trips to tank Castle e Padre um and end the season games when things are getting really these are the games that you know you can't sleep at night before and also European matches the ones where you're tested against a different level of opposition they're the ones that will really get Brandon Rogers going the players really get them going the fans um it's where Celtic needs to be trying to put themselves at that top level and we're going to have two more of those matches this year so that's good right away um yeah we're going to play pop four teams this time as well we didn't do that previously so the extra two matches are in theory going to be ones that we can try and win so we're going to have more competitive matches there which I think is exciting and I just think generally that the format of the competition maybe needed a Wei change and I think it should hopefully you know bring some new life into the UFA Champions League so I can't wait for it just even just the thought of like having eight matches to look forward to at that top level rather than just six seems like a pretty a pretty big difference and obviously if we do well we've at the opportunity for at least another two um going forward just realizing I don't think I even mentioned you probably know this though that the um the league phase matches will go all the way until the end of January H so we've actually still only got six Before Christmas as was the case previously we're going to now have a couple of additional ones in January so it's going to be brilliant right Adam Galler how many points realistically do we need to get to the next stage and do you think we will wear all three kits in the tournament H I have genuinely no idea about the kits in terms of your points question H earlier today just for you I simmed seven seasons of the new format on football manager the the latest Football manager and the points required to finish 24th were as follows now keep an eye on 24th here 8 10 9 10 10 10 and 10 there's a lot of 10 there so no team ever missed out on a top 24 spot on 10 points teams did miss out on nine uh so I reckon 10 points is is definitely H going to get you there nine could do it eight could do it but 10 is certainly what we should be aiming for and I reckon Football manager is going to be pretty realistic with all these results and that kind of thing 10 points it's a bit of a tall order I would say against Europe's best but four games at Celtic Park 12 up for grabs there alone if we can turn Celtic park into a fortress we may be doing all right H final thing I wanted to mention just before I go H terms of the UK TV rights the vast majority of matches will uh still be shown on TNT Sports however they have lost their exclusivity Amazon Prime will broadcast the uh the kind of most exciting match H in theory every Tuesday of the competition and with the rest on TNT BBC have a highlights program on a Wednesday night H every Wednesday of the tournament they've already started that with a qualifying I believe it's on tonight h a barber was certainly hosting it last week so that's exciting H I know around the world stand Sports have the rights here in Australia CBS in the states prize money is up dramatically for the tournament I've done a video on that already a couple of months ago it's up there somewhere so check that out and we just need to sign some play now and make this really worthwhile I can't wait for everyone the draw is on Thursday we'll chat a little bit more about that tomorrow speak to you then