☃️ 🎁⚽️ Good morning and happy Friday team! Yesterday, we learned about an extremely rare rule that disallowed what would have been a game tying goal. We weren’t too hard on ourselves for not knowing this one, even the commentators didn’t see anything wrong. Your lesson of the day (Kudos to you if you already knew this one): The same player who took the free-kick cannot touch the ball again until it is touched by another player. Here’s your example.

Giveaway: Wake up and smell the coffee. Just in time for the Holidays, our next giveaway will be a $30 gift card for our favorite coffee brand- Kickoff Coffee. As always, each friend that you refer to subscribe to the newsletter is an entry to our raffle. Best of luck!

Europa League Recap

Thursday 12/12

Retirement
An Italian Legend Says Farewell To The Game

1️⃣7️⃣ Seasons With Juventus and A European Champion. Giorgio Chiellini will go down as one of Italy’s legendary defenders. In his 17 years with Juventus, he won 9 consecutive league titles and sits third on the list of most matches played for the club. For his country, he played a total of 117 matches, leading the Italians to winning the 2020 European Championships and winning defender of the tournament that year.

🎥🎞️ No Hollywood ending, but plenty of laughs along the way. In June of 2022, Chiellini came Stateside and went Hollywood by joining LAFC. He lead the team to an MLS cup last year, however the team fell short this year losing to Columbus in the Final. There’s no doubt he’s made his mark on the sport through his tough defending and man marking abilities, but Chiellini will also be remembered for his villain moments. From his iconic “It’s the History of Tottenham” interview, his mind games with Jordi Alba during the coin toss before the penalty shootouts in Euro 2020, or his foul against Saka that England fans will never forget. But even with these moments, Chiellini will forever be one of the most well liked villains to have ever played the game.

Matches To Catch

Premier League

La Liga

Champions’ League
New Champion’s League Format for 2024/2025

⌛️ ⏳️🫥 There’s been a great disturbance in the force, and in 2024, you shall feel such force. The UEFA Executive Committee has approved a new format for club competitions as of 2024/25 season, including UEFA’s Champions League, Europa League. and Europa Conference League. UEFA cites extensive consultations with Club Competition Committees made of a majority of club representatives to justify such big changes.

3️⃣ 2️⃣ ⏩️ 3️⃣ 6️⃣ The More the Merrier, the changes transforms the traditional group stage to a single “league stage” that includes all participating teams. That’s right we may have just witnessed the last UEFA Champions League Group Stages ever. Clubs are now guaranteed a minimum 10 “league stage” games against 10 different opponents, 5 home games and 5 away. Compared to the traditional group stage format with six matches against three teams played on a home and away basis. The top 8 teams of the “league stage” will automatically qualify to the knockout stages, while the remaining teams will compete in a two-legged play off to secure their path to the knockout stages including the Round of 16.

The team that places ninth will compete against the team that finishes last (24) and the 10th place will play against 23rd and so on and so forth. The bottom 8 teams will be eliminated completely, as the Europa League safety net has been cut out moving forward. Compare this with the current format that oversaw 32 teams divided into 8 groups of 4 teams. However, restrictions will be placed to prevent teams from the same domestic league facing each other in the league stages. Expect an extended calendar as the league stages will end in January rather than December.

🤑 💸 💼 Mo’Matches, Mo’Problems? There will be a total of 189 games in next season’s Champions League, not including qualifying knockout rounds, that’s an increase of 64 games from the current format. UEFA doesn’t see problems, they also don’t see the grave physical toll and risk this adds to our boys on the pitch. Studies have shown an increase in injuries with the addition of more games. However, their respective teams won’t mind as they will take a larger slice of the broadcasting revenues that the new format brings.

By pairing the top teams against each other, including big time rivals, in the earlier stages of the new Champions League, more views will be drawn from the jump. Similar format changes will also applied to UEFA Europa league (8 matches in the league stage) and UEFA Europa Conference League (6 matches in the league stage). Note that qualifications to Champions League has not changed, and teams will continue to qualify through the their domestic competition performance. Further note that these changes

🙄😩🤔 Y U EF A CL? Some may argue that UEFA have created a “European Super League” of their own within Champions League. You may recall the “European Super League” was proposed by many top teams which was rejected and has faced criticism these last years. The Super League was pitched by the elites Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Juventus which revolved around the idea of a seasonal competition among 20 elite teams.

This proposal was shot down by almost everyone in the football community from fans, players, managers, to both UEFA and FIFA. Critics raised concerns about elitism and lack of competitiveness within the Super League. UEFA took it a step further, and threaten to ban participating teams from all other domestic, European and world football competitions. Shortly after such threat, the Super League fell apart with 9 clubs backing out and reintegrating with UEFA.

🎁🥹🤌 Same, same but different, in response to Super Leage, UEFA began looking to reform Champions League, and here you have their finished product. 36 teams, one table, and only the top 8 are guaranteed playoffs. Has UEFA’s new format avoided the well-noted concerns of elitism? Had it not been for the current format, would FC København have snagged their spot in the Round of 16?

Quick Bites 🍕

The Athletic: U.S. Soccer Chooses Atlanta

The U.S Soccer Federation will finally have its National Training Facility and it will be located 40 minutes outside of downtown Atlanta. Soccer President Cindy Parlow is optimistic that having a state of the art homebase will be transformative for the organization as a whole.

See the list here

ESPN: “MLS Adding 10 Second Substitute Shot Clock”

First big rule change: Players have 10 seconds to exit the field when being subbed off, if they fail to do so the player being subbed on will have to wait on the sideline for an additional minute, leaving the team down a man. The second rule change: if a player is down for more than 15 seconds, they must exit the field and be treated for a minimum of 2 minutes (besides harsh fouls that called for yellow or red cards). Clearly their aiming to discourage time wasting.

Read Full Article here

Around The Web 🕸️

▶A list of “Unkown” players that are quietely crushing it in Italy for the Serie A

▶ Rebecca Welch will become the first female in Premier League history, taking charge December 23rd

▶ Hilarious Micah Richard’s lookalike on CBS Golazo Show

▶ $7.8m for Messi’s 2022 World Cup Shirts

Tweet of the day: @TrollFootball