Why Champions League matches shouldn’t have changed days this season!
Traditionally speaking Champions League matches have been played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for as long as we can remember, but not anymore!
UEFA have straggled out Champions League fixtures across three consecutive days instead of two from Tuesday to Thursday nights, this is not right and is obviously TV related!
UEFA hold three tiers of European football from Champions League to Europa League to the newly introduced Conference League as of 2021.
Considering Champions League is the highest level of European football it should be held on a Tuesday or Wednesday like usual, despite all competitions now being held on three separate weeks. There are reasons to why Europa League/Conference League sides play later on in the week than early on.
To start off with it’s because on paper they aren’t the most attractive of sides and aren’t as good as Champions league teams. Domestically speaking they haven’t done as well during the previous season, so therefore they haven’t been merited the highest level of European football and the earliest days in the week for kickoff.
Understandably the addition of four new teams to the Champions League witnessing it’s total number of teams go from 32 to 36 means there’s more games, but only two!
With the three European competitions being held on three “exclusive weeks”, they’re making the already congested fixture schedule even more hectic. For example, Arsenal have to play three games in seven days currently, with the run having commenced on Sunday with our 1-0 win over Spurs.
This will be followed up with The Gunners Champions League campaign commencing over 800 miles away in Atalanta in Italy on Thursday, before having to rush back to play Manchester City nearly 200 miles away on Sunday in a crunch game. The Citizens have got to play three matches in eight days following their 2-1 win over Brentford on Saturday.
They then host Inter Milan in Europe on Wednesday, before sitting back and waiting for Arsenal to arrive without having to have moved out of Manchester for that time, when Arteta’s squad would’ve played and travelled nearly 2,000 miles that week already just to keep up with the footy TV calendar.
Are any fans interested in going all the way to Atalanta on Thursday and then try and get for the massive Man City game? Surely that will deter fans from travelling at all!
Liam Harding
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