Csató, László and Devriesere, Karel and Goossens, Dries and Gyimesi, András and Lambers, Roel and Spieksma, Frits C. R. (2025) Ranking matters : Does the new format select the best teams for the knockout phase in the UEFA Champions League? INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORTS SCIENCE AND COACHING. ISSN 1747-9541 10.1177/17479541251405330

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Abstract

Starting in the 2024/25 season, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has fundamentally changed the format of its club competitions: the group stage has been replaced by a league phase played by 36 teams in an incomplete round robin format. This makes ranking the teams based on their results challenging because teams play against different sets of opponents, whose strengths vary. In this research note, we apply several well-known ranking methods for incomplete round robin tournaments to the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League league phase in order to check the robustness of the official ranking, as well as to call the attention of organizers to the non-trivial issue of ranking in these competitions. Our results show that it is doubtful whether the currently used point-based system provides the best ranking of the teams.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics and Computer Science > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science / számítástechnika, számítógéptudomány
Divisions:	Research Laboratory on Engineering & Management Intelligence > Research Group of Operations Research and Decision Systems
SWORD Depositor:	MTMT Injector
Depositing User:	MTMT Injector
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2026 20:46
Last Modified:	28 Jan 2026 20:46
URI:	https://eprints.sztaki.hu/id/eprint/11097

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