COMPUTER SAYS
Major change to Champions League with supercomputer to determine Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool and Aston Villa opponents
New format will be a mystery to most fans
THE Champions League will introduce a SUPERCOMPUTER to decide the draw from next season.
It comes amid big changes to the format of Europe's premier competition.
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The first phase of the tournament previously consisted of eight groups of four teams.
But from next season that will be replaced, with an expanded 36 teams now featuring in the SAME league table.
Each team with play eight fixtures, four at home and four away, which means a much bigger draw is needed to decide who plays who.
Uefa feel it is no longer practical for all the fixtures to be drawn manually, so a supercomputer is set to arrange the matches.
That is because it would require 900 balls to be drawn - which Uefa say would take up to four hours to complete.
The usual rules apply with teams unable to face an opponent from the same country.
While seeding will be decided by Uefa's five-year performance coefficient, with four different groups each made up of nine teams.
However Uefa will maintain the tradition of picking balls from a hat.
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A club will be picked at random and then a supercomputer will decide their fixtures, and the same process will apply to the remaining eight clubs in Pot A.
There will also be draws for the knock-out rounds - one at the end of the league phase at the end of January, and another at the end of February for the Round of 16.
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