With that said, the eight-game league phase provides more opportunities to slip up and still recover to qualify.
In a six-game traditional group stage from half a decade ago, if you lost twice, that might have been your chances completely gone of progressing.
Two went through, two went out (albeit one dropped into the Europa League, in the previous format).
Now, teams could conceivably lose three or maybe even four to five times and still scrape into the knockout play-off spots from ninth to 24th.
That lack of immediate jeopardy is partly why some were resistant to the change in format to the current Swiss model.
Equally though, the league phase isn’t the be-all and end-all. Liverpool topped the league phase the season before last and came up against PSG, losing on penalties.
Arsenal won all eight league phase matches last year and didn’t manage to get over the line by winning the final.
