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UEFA Competition Special: coefficients, prize money & more w/ Mourad Amraoui
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Delving into the often confusing world of UEFA club competitions w/ Mourad Amraoui (@UEFADK_point): coefficients, prize money and most importantly what will it take for the 4 mens teams (FC København, FC Nordsjælland, FC Midtjylland & AGF) & 2 womens teams (HB Køge & Brøndby) to reach the group stages of the various competitions.
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Transcript
Show Introduction and Format
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to Danish Dynamite. Now I said last week the show would be coming to you on a monthly basis, which is true. But I did also say that there would be ad hoc specials along the way when something or someone suitably interesting comes along. And today is one of those
Super League Week 1 Highlights
00:00:29
Speaker
days. Before I introduce my guest, I have to say week one of the Super League season didn't disappoint. We had an FC Nordsland masterclass with an Ernest Nuama hat trick.
00:00:38
Speaker
We had two promoted teams giving FC Michelin and AGF, I think much tougher games than people had expected. We had a last gasp ran as equalizer in Odensa that was quite close to being a Patrick Carlgren goal, which would have been a collector's item. We had a debut goal for Cho Gui Sung, a player that was talked about loads over the off season and who delivered on his first game. And we even had the rare sighting of a fully fit Andreas Cornelius, albeit it only took a couple of days into
00:01:04
Speaker
then be missing from the squad with injury, but nonetheless, great to see him again and in a starting
Danish Teams in UEFA Competitions
00:01:09
Speaker
11. Today's show has a slightly different flavor and with six Danish teams across the men's and women's game playing in various UEFA club competitions, we're going to be talking all things European from coefficients to prize money. With one of the experts on the subject, Morad Amrawi, who is a sports and data analyst at HobyCo and runs the UEFA DK underscore point Twitter account.
Morad Amrawi's Journey into Football Analytics
00:01:32
Speaker
Morad, welcome to the show.
00:01:33
Speaker
Thanks for having me. And you're doing this on your holiday, so very much appreciate it. Yeah, well, it has to be in the heart of Europe. So I'm actually in Luxembourg at the moment.
00:01:43
Speaker
Not that I will have the possibility to watch any European qualifying matches here because, well, they're all playing abroad pretty much. I guess to start things off, I wondered, how did you get into kind of examining the coefficients and understanding how this really quite complicated system of point scoring works?
Understanding Football Coefficients
00:02:06
Speaker
To be honest, it actually just started with me being extremely jet lagged and bored on a trip to New Zealand prior to an extended family event in March 2016. What I wanted to see was what were the possibilities for more than one Danish team in the European group stages. Because during that season FC Michelin had, for the first time in their history, actually managed to qualify to the Europa League group stage.
00:02:31
Speaker
while FC Copenhagen had crashed out to Jablonich in the qualifiers during that same season. So for years, almost decades now, in Denmark, we've all been talking about, OK, FC Copenhagen is the locomotive of the European train in Denmark. And then suddenly they're out of the game. Then suddenly, OK, we need someone else to also fill in the gaps or actually have more than just one team in Europe, actually.
00:03:00
Speaker
That's basically how it started. And I started getting active on fan forums about that topic. And well, about two years ago, I started this Twitter account that had that specific focus. Yeah, so I've had the possibility to talk about this once at the Danish Mediano podcast in an episode in 2021. And as part of other topics, I've been
00:03:30
Speaker
talking about this also as a regular guest at Absalon's Radio. It's an FC Copenhagen fan podcast, but they bring me in not only for coefficients and rankings, but also everything related to the world of football, such as injury prevention, rehabilitation, sports psychology, talent development, and of course also my personal field of expertise, which is penalty kicks.
Country vs Club Coefficients
00:03:54
Speaker
Brilliant. Well, you're a man with many talents. I've wondered if for people like me who sort of know that teams do well in Europe, your coefficient gets better. If you do badly, it goes down. But how does the coefficient work on a more granular basis?
00:04:12
Speaker
Basically the coefficients are basically the means to assess the value of a European result for any given team based on not only the team's individual merits but also the merits of the country of origin. So there are actually two types of coefficients that actually matter regarding European club competitions.
00:04:29
Speaker
One is the country coefficient that determines how many teams each country gets in the three different tournaments, for the men's team anyway, and also when the teams start and to some extent also how easy or how hard their draw is going to be in the qualifying rounds and the group stage. And then we have the club coefficients that determine the level of difficulty of the draws for the individual teams, both in the qualifying rounds and in the group stage.
00:04:57
Speaker
So the coefficients, the country coefficients, they are calculated by taking the average sum of the number of points won by the teams from said country in a certain season. For instance, last season, Denmark, the Danish teams in total gathered, was it 39.5 points? And there were five teams in Europe, so you have to divide that by a
00:05:18
Speaker
by five. And then you get the sum of the points that were gathered during that season. Not last season, but the prior season in 21-22. Sorry. Got it. And the amount of points you get varies per competition, is that right? Yes and no. It's more the amount of bonus points that you get. In the qualifying rounds, you get the country coefficient is
00:05:46
Speaker
one point for a win half a point for a draw and in the group stage it's two points for a win one point for a draw and then of course you have the bonus points you get four bonus points if you qualify for the for the Champions League group stage and five additional more bonus points if you advance from the group stage to the round of 16 and so forth there are more bonus points to be gathered. In
00:06:08
Speaker
Europa League, you don't get bonus points per se before you advance to the knockout stages of the tournament. And it's the same with the conference league, but you have to reach like a quarter or seven finals before bonus points start to appear on your account.
Impact of the Conference League on Smaller Nations
00:06:23
Speaker
Got it. So the advent of the conference league, I presume, then has been beneficial for sort of, quote, smaller nations like Denmark, because it's easier to pick up coefficient points.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yes, if we take the example of the 21-22 season, Denmark had four teams in the group stages across competitions. There were two in the Europa League, you had Van Gogh and FC Michelin, and you had two teams in the conference league, you had FC Copenhagen and Ramas.
00:06:54
Speaker
And Rannas were able to manage to get a lot of points during their spell in the group stage. Played a lot of draws and then one win and then one defeat as well. Well FC Copenhagen almost made a clean sweep except that one match were against Pauk from Greece where Grappar got the red card after nine minutes and then they lost 2-1 at home in Parken.
00:07:21
Speaker
So it feels like it's almost beneficial for Danish teams to underperform in the qualification so that they make it into the conference league. You might say that, but then again, there are also a lot of points
Evolution of Danish Coefficients
00:07:33
Speaker
to be gained in the qualifying rounds as well. And if you play the Champions League qualifier, then you can ask if a team is strong enough to actually qualify for the Champions League, then maybe they're also strong enough to get some points in the Champions League as well.
00:07:51
Speaker
How has the Danish coefficient as a whole changed over the time that you've been looking at it? I think you said 2016. Is the league kind of in ascendancy, descendancy? I noticed that this season, for example, there's only one Champions League qualification space last season, there were two. I'm guessing that's not a good sign.
00:08:08
Speaker
It's mainly, well, you can say, oh, is it a good sign? Is it not a good sign? The question is how, because the ranking of a country is based on the performances from the past five years, and they can go
00:08:23
Speaker
And quite recently Denmark still had a very good spell from the 16-17 season where FC Copenhagen managed to get to the round of 16 in the Europa League after playing very well in the Champions League group stage as well against Leicester, against Bruges, against Porto. And at the same time in that same season you saw that the remaining teams
00:08:50
Speaker
remaining Danish teams also managed to reach the playoff round in the Europa League. So it was a very good spell for Danish football for that season. Then suddenly that gets left out of the, that season slides out and then of course you're going to see there's a dive from then on.
00:09:11
Speaker
And so going into next season, the results that are about to drop off the previous five years, does that make things harder or easier? I can't quite work it out.
Future Changes in European Competitions
00:09:22
Speaker
Neither or because there's going to be a change of the format of the European competition starting from next season, which actually means that the Danish Cup winner will be in the Europa League qualifiers because it's like the top 30, as far as I remember, top 30 countries, all their Cup winners will have a chance to be in the Europa League somehow. Got it. Okay, cool. So Coefficient,
00:09:50
Speaker
If I understand correctly, then it's just the sum total of all the points you get for individual results. So for the countries. Yes. For the countries. Yes. Okay. Country coefficients. That's the way it is. Not just the sum. It's the average because, for instance, for this season, all the points that Danish teams will gather, you have to divide it by four because for Danish teams, if you were to compare that with the English teams, you would have to divide it by eight because eight English teams in Europe.
00:10:19
Speaker
Got it. So a result like, for example, when AGF went out in the first qualifying round to LAN from Northern Ireland, that's particularly detrimental because it means they earn zero points and count towards
Prize Money and Coefficients
00:10:31
Speaker
the average. Yeah. Well, they did manage to get a draw on the return match, so it was like 0.5 points. Yeah. Let's not bury them more than we have to.
00:10:44
Speaker
And so if that's how coefficients work, how does prize money work? Is that linked to the coefficient or is that something completely separate? And how does it vary between the different UA for competitions?
00:10:54
Speaker
Yes and no. Well, there are different types of prize money. If you look at the various competitions, you see that just for participating in the tournament, the prize money are very, very different. If we take the lowest, if you take conference league, you get 2.9 million euros just for qualifying for the tournament and you get
00:11:19
Speaker
500,000 euros for a win and 166,000 euros for a draw. And then if you go to the Europa League, it's 3.6 million just for participating, 630,000 for winning a match and 210,000 for a draw.
00:11:42
Speaker
And of course there are also additional prize money if you finish in the top two, if you win your group and then you continue. But that's a very, I don't want to put too many numbers if I can avoid it. But then if you look at the Champions League, suddenly you see just for qualifying, you get 15.6 million euros just for qualifying and 2.8 million euros for a win and 900,000 euros for a draw.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah,
FC Copenhagen's Financial Gains from UEFA
00:12:12
Speaker
so I mean, those kind of figures are astronomical for Danish teams. You can see that for FC Copenhagen, for example, making it into the Champions League group stage and then getting three draws last season and then dropping into the Europa. I mean, that must have been a bumper season in terms of European income.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, the income was around 26 million euros that FC Copenhagen got. I mean, even though they finished fourth and didn't play any knockout stage matches after the group stage, but they still managed to get what corresponds to 200 million kroner pretty much. Amazing.
00:12:51
Speaker
But just to answer your question, in regards to whether the coefficients also matter in regards to how many prize money each team gets, yes, it does matter as well because there is something called a coefficient bonus. Each team in the tournaments get a certain amount of shares of extra prize money according to their ranking regarding the past 10 years.
00:13:17
Speaker
So if you're the lowest ranked team, you get one share. If you're the second lowest ranked team, you get two shares and so forth up until if you're the best seated team, then you get 32 shares. So that's also a lot of money that you get through that. Actually, Copenhagen got eight million euros last season from that. Got it. So you don't fully know the picture of the prize money then until the very end of the season, is that right?
00:13:48
Speaker
Until, no, basically because there are some that are linked to performance and some that are linked to the coefficient. But again, the coefficient is calculated, the coefficient bonus calculated from the results until that season, so the previous five, previous 10 years.
00:14:05
Speaker
So, for instance, for now, for FC Copenhagen, if they were to qualify to any group stage, then we would look at the past 10 years and see the results, where are they ranked, and then we look at how much money they get in a qualifying bonus, coefficient bonus,
Conference League and Europa League Allocation Changes
00:14:24
Speaker
sorry. Got it. And who does Denmark need to leapfrog in order to get two Champions League places again?
00:14:31
Speaker
Well, it's quite a few. It's actually quite the battle at the moment. If we look at the teams that are from top 10 to top 20, perhaps I should say from top 11 to top 20, that's like the main competition. Number 11 is Switzerland. Number 12 is Serbia, 13 Turkey.
00:14:58
Speaker
14 Ukraine, 15 Norway, Denmark is ranked 16, Israel 17, 18 Czech Republic, 19 Greece, and Sweden is in 20th place. Wow. Maybe we should even say Croatia because they also have a powerhouse locomotive and as with the dynamo sacrifice.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm amazed that Switzerland are so high in that, but I guess Basel do tend to do quite well, but beyond that... Yeah, they had a really, really good spell last season, actually for the past two seasons with the conference league. Basel has been hammering in, I don't know how many points in those two seasons, and you have also a team like young boys and FC Zurich also gathering a lot of points as well. Wow.
00:15:46
Speaker
One question I had for you is that over the years that I've been watching Danish football, the Europa League's been such a big part of European competitions because it tended to be where the Danish teams ended up. This is the first season we're going into where there's no direct placements into the Europa League. And I know that if FC Copenhagen don't make it through the Champions League, chances are they'll go to the Europa League. But why is there no
00:16:10
Speaker
place in the Europa League or Europa League qualifying for second place or the cup winner? Short answer conference league basically. The conference league was created because UEFA wanted a competition that was more exclusive for the teams from the biggest leagues that didn't manage to qualify to the Champions League because it was in nobody's well if you look at the
00:16:36
Speaker
the top executives. It wasn't in their interest that a team like Liverpool would suddenly have to play against, I don't know, number two from Kazakhstan or Moldova in a group stage. There wouldn't be a lot of people that would watch that. So they wanted to make the Europa League more exclusive for
00:16:54
Speaker
Not the very, very best teams, but the second best teams. So right now the Europa League is for like the fourth, fifth, sixth place teams from the top seven leagues, the cup winners from the top 15 leagues or national champions that fail to qualify to the Champions League group stage. Got it. So if Denmark was to move from 16 to 15, the cup winners would get a place in the Europa League rather than the conference.
00:17:18
Speaker
In the previous seasons and including this season, yes, but now the format is changing from next season onwards.
Football Analyst Community on Twitter
00:17:24
Speaker
So yeah, the cup winner is going to get a spot in the Europa League qualifiers. Got it. Wow. Okay. Lots to digest there. It takes time. It takes time. You just need to adjust and sometimes it's easier to show on video, on a picture, but
00:17:42
Speaker
That's not really possible in the podcast format. So yeah, that's also why I try to try it as much as possible to try not to have too many numbers when I actually discuss this topic. If you have any charts or graphics or whatever, I'm happy to happy to post them below the podcast for anyone who wants to see. I think there's another Danish guy called Mascana Pilasson. He's been on the show.
00:18:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, he likes to actually play with those charts and stuff like that. So I would actually recommend for people to actually look at that as well, because he actually is very good at putting that on as a visual. But also, I would also recommend even though he's not Danish, but
00:18:30
Speaker
There's also this Twitter account called Swiss football data. Um, and he, the Swiss guy also does a lot of that as well. So actually there's quite a community also on Twitter with people from different countries that basically do the same thing that I do.
State of Women's UEFA Competitions
00:18:46
Speaker
Brilliant. We're going to talk about the current state of play for the Danish teams, but a part of that as well is the, uh, the women's teams. We got two Danish women's teams in Europe. And I wondered how does the coefficient and the prize money
00:18:59
Speaker
and the competition structure vary in the women's game? Well, there's only one competition at the moment for one European women's competition, unfortunately. I really hope that in the long run that UEFA will see the value in promoting the women's game.
00:19:18
Speaker
Right now, the Women's Champions League consists of 16 teams, four groups of four teams. And Denmark has two teams in the qualifiers.
00:19:34
Speaker
Hopi Koer, my team, who are Danish champions, who will participate in the Champions Path, and then Pranbhu, who will participate in the League Path. So Koer will face Koops in the first qualifying match, and should we win, we will face the winner between Spartak Subotica from Serbia and Klaksvik from Faroe Islands. Sounds like you've got quite a good chance then.
00:20:02
Speaker
Hopefully, fingers crossed. We've had quite a turnover this season. A lot of players who has changed clubs and got a lot of new players in. So it's kind of like a new team. We also changed the head coach. So we'll see how we do. Of course, we hope that we'll manage to get through, but it's tough.
00:20:27
Speaker
We faced Juventus last year in the playoff match. So yeah, competition can be quite stiff, especially when there's only 16 spots available. Absolutely. And who are the traditional European powerhouses of Danish women's football?
00:20:42
Speaker
Usually it has been teams like Buan Bu and Fortuna Yeung who have played very well, but of course it's been on a different format. It's been more cup format previously. It's only very recently that the Women's Champions League became a group stage tournament
Danish Teams' Progress in UEFA Qualifiers
00:21:00
Speaker
as well.
00:21:00
Speaker
And of course, we don't have to we mustn't forget that one we will also play in the the league path for the qualifiers for for Champions League. They will face Celtic in their first match. And should they win, they will face the winner of Volarenga from Norway and FC Minsk from Belarus as their next opponent. OK, well, good luck to both Gromby and Hoby Ko in those matches.
00:21:25
Speaker
Looking at the men's situation, FC Copenhagen played last night in the Champions League qualifier against a team from Iceland that I'm not going to try and pronounce. There we go, thank you. This is why it's good to have a Danish speaker on here. I'm right in saying that should they progress through this tie, there's two more qualifying rounds before they reach the group stage.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yes, that is correct. And also should they advance against the against by the blick, then they FC Copenhagen will be sure to play some kind of group stage this season. OK, so if they advance, they will play the third qualifying round and they will face Sparta Prague as the as their opponent.
00:22:09
Speaker
which is the most horrendous draw they could face at all. It's the strongest possible opponent, according to ELO rankings, which ranks the strength of each team. They have four Danish players in the squad that actually know FC Copenhagen. They have four coaching staff members that are from Denmark and who also know FC Copenhagen. It just couldn't be worse.
00:22:36
Speaker
FC Copenhagen will start at home and finish in Prague. So it's just you couldn't ask for a worse draw for FC Copenhagen in that regard. And you said they've got four Danish players who will know FC Co. They've also just signed James Gomez. So it's the fifth player who knows FC Co. intimately. It's going to be tough for FC Copenhagen. It's not going to be an easy ride if they want to qualify. So if they go out against Sparta Prague, they'll be into the Europa
00:23:06
Speaker
playoff qualifier, which is the final one before the group stage, is that right? Correct, correct. And we don't know who they can face because the draw for the playoff rounds hasn't been made yet. Should Breitdeblich actually win by three goals or more in Parken next week, then FC Copenhagen will face the loser between Mosta from Bosnia and Sloban Pratislava in the Europa League third qualifying round. I don't want to get the hopes up of those two teams, but I don't think they'll be coming to Parken.
00:23:35
Speaker
for that game. No, but I mean, there are some people who like to do the ground hopping, who travel to all different destinations. So for them, maybe a trip to Bosnia or Slovakia sounds more interesting than going to the Czech Republic, even though the beer is quite cheap there. Absolutely. There's three more Danish teams in European competitions this year, obviously AKF, FC Norjland and FC Michelin. How are all of those positioned for reaching a group stage?
00:24:05
Speaker
Well FC Michelin is seeded to actually reach the group stage in the conference league and then be in seeding part two in that regard. So they are playing against the team from Luxembourg. Porgre Niedercon, so they're playing the first match tomorrow in Hanning and then the return match next week. And in case that they defeat Porgre Niedercon, they will play the winner
00:24:34
Speaker
from Umonia Nikosia from Cyprus or Gabala from Azerbaijan. Of course their favorites there as well, but of course you have to take in, okay, it's a long trip to Azerbaijan or it's very hot in Cyprus and the fans are crazy there, so it's something you also have to take into account. Got it, and then after those two fixtures there would still be the the playoff round, so there's... Yes, and then they will still be seated there, so yeah, the opponent can be, well, we don't know yet.
00:25:03
Speaker
So there's a decent chance for them. Yes. AGF are joining at the same time, but they've got a much trickier draw, don't they?
00:25:12
Speaker
Yes, they're playing against Bruges, which is the highest seeded team in Q1, Q2 and third qualifying round of the conference league. They couldn't do any worse in that regard, on paper anyway. But if they manage to defeat the Belgians, then they will face either Akureyri from Iceland or Dundalk from Ireland.
00:25:39
Speaker
in the third qualifying round. And that's because they will take over the seeding of Bruges in the third qualifying round. Okay, so harder game first, easier game second. Yes. And also, they've already played a league game, whereas I think the Belgian league doesn't come back till this coming weekend, so they're slightly ahead in their preparation. Maybe that will help.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, perhaps. Plus also the first match is played in Belgium, so they have the return match in Aarhus. And who knows? If they get a good result away, then it's not impossible, but of course it's going to be difficult. And you shouldn't underestimate any opponent.
00:26:23
Speaker
And then FC Nordschulen start a round ahead by virtue of finishing second last season. Just to clarify, sorry, it's nitpicking, but just to clarify, it's because FC Copenhagen won the double that FC Nordschulen will start in the third qualifying round. And if FC Copenhagen hadn't won the double, then it would have been the cup winner that would have started in the third qualifying round. Oh, really? Yes. This is where the intricacies come in that I have no idea about.
00:26:50
Speaker
It's incredibly, incredibly nerdish and you're like, oh, you're, you're nitpicking at all these little details, but you know, they in the long run, they make a difference.
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's helpful to know. So they don't know their opponent yet. It could be one of two teams, is that right? Yes. CSKA, Sofia from Bulgaria, and FCSB, the former Stoa Bucharest of Romania. Got it. And they start away in the finish at home. And if you look at the ELO rating, which again, just assesses how strong the different teams are, then FC North Zealand are actually small favorites to advance.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's positive. It is. But we don't know what the situation is going to be because North Zealand had to say goodbye to quite a few players, key players, after the previous season, players like Mes Bistrope, Jago Rasmussen, Mark Kondis, and who knows, PSG might buy Nuama. So, yeah, we don't know what the situation is going to be when the first match is displayed.
Hopes for Danish Success in European Stages
00:27:55
Speaker
That is true. But, you know,
00:27:57
Speaker
the way they played on Monday, I'd fancy them against anyone really at the moment. So that's going to be exciting. And I'm going to be in Faram for that game. So the third qualifying round. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Sounds like fun.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, the draw was kind to me that they got picked out. I was watching the draw really hoping that they'd get picked out for the pot second. So they were at home second leg. And I was yeah, I was punching the air when I saw that happen because otherwise I would have I would have been there with no game to go to. Yeah, excited to see how they get on. And I hope that if everything goes to plan that we'll get at least three out of four teams in some form of European group stage next season. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully we can get all four of them.
00:28:42
Speaker
That would be fantastic. Yeah. Also because then it would actually mean that the teams, because this season we only have to divide by four compared to last season where we had to divide by five. So suddenly if we can get more teams in the group stage, then it would mean a lot.
00:29:02
Speaker
Uh, if we just take an example, like, um, for quite a few seasons, Scotland was basically at the same level as Denmark or Czech Republic or Croatia or something like that. And then Rangers finally got their together.
00:29:18
Speaker
pardon my French, and now they're in the top 10 because they're continuously hammering in points in Europe, both Celtic and Rangers and whatever third team also from Scotland is there, then if we have a situation just like that for Danish teams with perhaps FC Copenhagen and FC Michelin as the
00:29:40
Speaker
as the main point gatherers and the other teams to actually also do an effort as well and actually manage to get some points then Danish football would be in a better state.
Emotional Side of Supporting Football Teams
00:29:51
Speaker
Fantastic. Well I can't wait to see it all unfold and thank you so much for coming on the show and explaining it all. I feel much more informed now and hopefully everyone listening has a bit more of a clue as to what's going on. Yeah I hope so. I mean sometimes it can be very
00:30:05
Speaker
very difficult also to explain and also when you talk to people I mean I try to bring it from a neutral perspective but of course you see fans from one team who don't want that the other teams from Denmark that don't get any benefit from that and then suddenly why should we care about that or why are we
00:30:30
Speaker
Why should we bother about winning this or this and this? We just want to see them fail rather than almost see our own team win, basically. But it's always a tricky situation. It all depends on what's most important for you. Absolutely. And as an Arsenal fan, I'm well versed in hoping all of my rivals fail in Europe. But when I watch the Danish teams, of course, I want everyone to win. So, yeah.
00:30:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's kind of like the situation. If Tottenham were to win the Champions League and it would mean a place in Champions League for Arsenal, would you root for Tottenham then or not?
00:31:06
Speaker
Absolutely not. That's the dilemma with football, because you can look at it from a rational perspective, but then at the end of the day, it's all about emotions, all about what are you connected to? Who do you like? Who do you have sympathies for? And who do you absolutely really, really, really hate? Absolutely. That's what it's all about. Murad, thank you so much for your time. I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday and hopefully come back on the show when there's
00:31:35
Speaker
another European dilemma to unpick. It sounds like everything's changing next season, so we might have to get you back for that. Yeah, I'm going to need some time to figure it out myself because it's quite tricky just to figure out what is it exactly, what are the systems. And one of the main things that we're actually going to see from the upcoming season is that once you reach the group stage, you're not going to see teams drop down from Champions League down to Europa League or from Europa League down to Conference League. Interesting.
00:32:04
Speaker
So Sevilla can't do what they've been doing for the past something something years like win the Europa League, qualify for the Champions League and then drop down to the Europa League and win it again and then do that circle all over again. That won't be a possibility anymore. I think that's only a good thing. Good stuff. All right. Thanks, Morad. And good luck to all the Danish teams, especially Hoby Ko in the Women's Champions League. Damn right. Damn right.