With the Champions League kicking off today, it is important to look at how AC Milan could progress, and what will be required of Paulo Fonseca’s side ahead of the Liverpool game.
The Champions League remains one of the most exciting competitions in World football, let alone European football and Milan vs. Liverpool is a fantastic game to kickstart things. However, the competition has been reworked.
In the past, teams would be drawn into a four-team group playing each other side twice – once home and once away. This has been scrapped by UEFA, though, in favour of a new league format. Now, clubs will face eight teams in a league system, and the hope is that this will provide a more exciting opening stage to the competition with teams having a larger chance of progression.
Perhaps, this could alter how teams perform in games, as suggested by a journalist earlier today.
This morning, Gazzetta dello Sport looked into how many points may be required to progress through the competition, and their findings have been relayed by Milan News.
How many points do you need to go through in the new Champions League?
“Only the top eight qualify for the round of 16. The football statistics platform ‘Football meets Data’ carried out ten thousand simulations and this is what came out. In 28% of the simulations, 14 points were sufficient for eighth place. In 42% of the simulations fifteen were needed. In 24% as many as 16 points. In short, with five wins and a draw you have a good chance of advancing to the round of 16.”
On the points needed to be in the 24…
“The other place to look at carefully is 24th, the last one that gives the right to play in the playoffs with which the other eight teams with which the round of 16 will be completed will be decided. According to the simulations, eight to nine points should be enough to make it, with 10 being more comfortable.
“These numbers are in line with those of another simulation carried out by ‘ESPN’ before the draw, which gives us an idea of how much balance there could be until the end: with one day to go, only two teams were sure of finishing in the top eight, 17 were in the running for places from third to eighth, and as many as 14 would have played for a place in the top 24 on the last day.”
On the cruciality of the goal difference…
“The goal difference will be decisive: at the end of the last day of this simulation, as many as 29 out of 36 teams ended up with the same score as at least one other team.”