In Some Champions Leagues You Have to Actually Win Things

By: Daryl | March 12th, 2008

The competition we call the Champions League isn’t actually the Champions League. Even if it thinks it is. It’s just the UEFA Champions League. There’s also, among others, the AFC Champions League, which is the premier competition for all Asian clubs. And the first matchday of the 2008 competition was today.

The AFC Champions League was born in the 2002/3 season and is fundamentally similar to its UEFA cousin, but with a few little tweaks. First of all, the fun (and money) is a lot more evenly distributed among the the various domestic leagues.

The 29 competing teams are made up of (this season at least) two teams each from fourteen different countries, plus the reigning champion (in this case Urawa Red Diamonds of Japan.) So there’s no chance of a situation developing where half the teams in the quarterfinals are all from the same country. Because that would be mental.

But I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “isn’t 29 teams a bit of a weird number?” And you’re right, it is. So here’s the clever bit. The AFC Champions League has seven groups of four, and then each group winner goes through to the quarters to be joined by the current holders. If you finish second in your group, then you’re going back where you came from no matter how important you are.

That, coupled with the fact that each countries two entrants are usually the league champions and the domestic cup winners means the teams in the AFC Champions League quarter-finals really are champions. They’ve likely won a trophy in their own country and then they’ve outright won their group, so fourth place in the Chinese Super League and runner up in Group E won’t get you a spot in the quarterfinals. Unlike some other Champions Leagues we could mention.

But don’t go embracing this as some sort of socialist utopia of footballing meritocracy just yet. While every nation got two entrants in the 2008 AFC Champions League, poor old Thailand and Vietnam usually get screwed with only one slot each. They each got an extra one this season because Indonesia got screwed even more when the AFC decided to withdraw their slots because the Liga Indonesia wasn’t going to finish before January 2008. The basic lesson here is that, in any Champions League, the little teams are going to get screwed. The only difference is how much.