It isn’t quite official. But only a mathematical freak can now prevent Liverpool from making a swift return to the Champions League next season.
The draw at West Ham United on Saturday may have realistically ended hopes of sending off Jurgen Klopp as a Premier League winner for the second time but, coupled with Tottenham Hotspur’s 3-2 loss at home to Arsenal the following day, it was sufficient to effectively secure a top-four slot for the Reds.
Fifth-placed Tottenham are 15 points behind Klopp’s side with five games remaining, meaning Spurs would have to win all five games and Liverpool lose their remaining three while there is at least a 26-goal swing in goal difference in favour of the Londoners.
That isn’t going to happen. Liverpool under incoming manager Arne Slot, then, can look forward to a return to Europe’s top table having been missing this term after last season’s disappointing fifth-place finish. But the landscape is changing in the most dramatic revamp of the Champions League since its inception more than 30 years ago.
Gone is the group stage with UEFA having overhauled the entire first round. Instead of eight groups of four, there is now just one single league table including all the teams, the total of which has been bumped up from 32 to 36.
Clubs will play eight games – an increase on the current six – with four at home and four away, all of which will be against different opponents. At the end of the first round, the top eight teams in the table automatically qualify for the knockout stages with the next 16 facing a two-legged play-off to proceed, with games dependent on league position – ninth v 24th, 10th v 23rd and so on. The competition then continues as normal from the last 16 onwards as a knockout. The bottom 12 teams in the league are eliminated from European qualification altogether – no more dropping into the Europa League.
Two of the extra four places in the first round will be awarded to countries whose teams have performed best in the previous season – the current campaign – in European competition. England had been expected to take one of the two places until their poor showings in the quarter-finals, with Italy confirmed as one of the countries and Germany now almost certain to be the other.
The Europa League and Europa Conference League are also switching to a 36-team single league phase for the first round, although the latter competition will see teams play only six matches in the league stage.
So does that mean no more lengthy draw?
Well, yes and no. There will still be a draw to determine the fixtures, with four pots of nine teams. Teams will face two teams from each pot, with clubs from the same country not able to face each other in the league stage. However, so complex are the equations required that, other than picking out an initial team from pot one, the rest of the draw will be computerised after UEFA discovered it may have taken up to four hours to complete manually. No human has yet been born who can withstand such tedium.
After the final 16 is determined following the play-off round, the knockout stages will be shaped by a seeding system, which for example means the teams that finish in the top two of the league stage then cannot meet until the final. It means there will be no further draws after the round of 16 as the pathway to the final will be locked in.
Where will Liverpool be?
Once their qualification is officially confirmed, Liverpool will be in the first pot given their overall record in Europe during the last five years. Only Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain are above them in the rankings.
When are the first round games being played?
This is where there is another massive change. Liverpool have only twice before played a European game in January – Ferencvaros in 1968 and Juventus in 1985 – but the extra games in the Champions League group stage means there will be two matches towards the end of that month next season. The earlier six games are in the usual dates in the opening months of the campaign. The final, by the way, is in Munich.
Who else has qualified?
It says much about how well Liverpool have performed over the course of the season that they’ve been able to realistically lock down a top-four place before May. And they are set to be joined by a list of the usual suspects.
