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Anonymous
Okay /sp/, like almost all americans, I know very little about soccer/football. However, I'm actually getting kinda interested.

I've been watching a few of the champions league matches, and I'm just kinda curious about the "group stage" and "match day" shit. anyone mind explaining?
>> DAFTcrunk !!qzeUh5NZAVO
Top two from each group advance to the knockout stage, where it's home and away, winner on aggregate. or something like that.
>> Britannian Anonymous !4bbKDTSEQc
>>491225
You could just look it up on wikipedia, but oh well.

Group Stage: The 32 qualifying teams are put into groups of 4, where they play each other twice (home and away) and follow the usual league format of: Win = 3points, Draw = 1 Point, Loss = 0 etc. After this the top two teams in each group qualify for the KO Stages. There they are drawn (randomly, but with some parameters like group winners can't play each other in the first game) into a play-off tree. Teams play one home game and one away game and the aggregate score decides who wins. example:
Home - Away
Real Madrid 4-2 Juventus
Juventus 2-0 Real Madrid
Aggregate Score is Real Madrid 4-4 Juventus. However, to break the tie the 'away goals rule' is used, basically whoever scores the most goals playing away wins, thus Juventus win as they scored 2 goals away and Madrid scored none.

This format is followed until the Final. Which is just a one-off game in a pre-determined city (usually neutral) like the Superbowl.
>> Anonymous
>>491362
so say Real Madrid and Chelsea got paired up in KO round, and the first game was Real (H) 5-2 Chelsea, Chelsea would need a hold Real to under 2 goals and win by 3, or else win by 4 outright?

do I have it right?
>> Anonymous
>>491759
yes, i think you have it right (amerifag here also)