"Statistically, its success is clear, with Uefa data showing a 27% rise in the number of matches decided by a single goal and a 16% increase in the number featuring goals from both teams compared with the same stage last season. The win rate for the team who scored first is down from 88% to 61% and the lowest-ranked teams in the league phase took an average of 1.1 points a game compared with 0.6 last season."
"For teams like us the new format is really interesting, because you play against different opponents, and mostly, when there is a group stage, you already kind of know who is going to finish first or second, she said. This [format] gave us a bigger chance to actually go through, and that's what happened, even if we didn't think about it, we didn't dream about it."
The next phase of the new Women's Champions League format begins with four playoff first legs featuring Arsenal and Manchester United among eight teams vying to join Barcelona, Lyon, Chelsea and Bayern Munich, who qualified automatically as the top four in the league phase. The competition moved from a group stage to a league format after only one season of groups, prompting scepticism, but the new structure has produced positives. Statistical improvements include a 27% rise in one-goal matches and a 16% increase in both-teams-scoring games. Lower-ranked teams averaged 1.1 points per game compared with 0.6 last season. Cumulative live viewership reached 13.5 million.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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