VIE 29 DE MARZO DE 2024 - 05:41hs.
Condensed period from August 12 to 23

UEFA announces 'final eight' in Lisbon to complete the Champions League

The city of Lisbon will host the final stretch of the Champions League. This Wednesday, UEFA announced that the Portuguese capital will receive, next August 7 to 23, the remaining games of the competition, but with some important changes. One of them will be the single-leg knock-out format. Once the round of 16 matches have been concluded, the following stages will be defined in just one game. UEFA has also confirmed new dates for Europa League, Nations League and Women's Champions.

The 2019-20 UEFA Champions League season will resume on August 7 and be completed later than month following short tournament in Lisbon, European soccer’s governing body formally announced Wednesday following a vote by its membership.

The world’s most prestigious club competition had just begun its knockout phase when play ground to a halt in March because of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Under the new plan, the four-remaining round of 16 second-leg matches would be played without fans starting on Aug. 7, either in the Portuguese capital or in the cities where they were originally scheduled. The winners of those series will advance to the 2-day tourney in Lisbon alongside the four teams that have already clinched a quarterfinal berth.

The quarterfinals matches will take place over four consecutive days from Aug. 12-15. The semis would follow on Aug. 18 and 19, with the final — which had been slated for last month in Istanbul before the health crisis turned the world upside-down — on Aug. 23. All would be single-elimination games.

The four clubs who have already punched their tickets to Portugal are Atalanta (Italy), Atletico Madrid (Spain), Paris Saint-Germain (France) and RB Leipzig (Germany). Bayern Munich leads Chelsea 3-0 in their two-match, total goals series, while Italian titan Juventus trails French side Lyon 1-0. Meantime, Lionel Messi’s Barcelona is deadlocked 1-1 with Napoli.

The Champions League will become the first and highest-profile cross-border sporting event to return amid the pandemic, although several prominent domestic soccer leagues have already successfully restarted, including the top divisions in Germany and Spain. England’s Premier League, the planet’s most-watched sports league, comes back with a pair of matches Wednesday.

UEFA also confirms dates for Europa League, Nations League and Women's Champions

The Champions League had its future defined on Wednesday (17). But UEFA did not just talk about this competition at its meeting. The path to be followed by the Europa League, the Women's Champions and the Nations League was also revealed this morning.

In the case of Europa League, the scenario is very similar to that of the "sister" competition. The quarterfinal, semis and final matches will be played in Germany, in a single game and in four different venues: Duisburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Gelsenkirchen.

The venues of the round of 16 rematch games have yet to be defined. Inter v Getafe and Roma v Sevilla, who did not even have the first games, will also play a single game. The rematch games will take place before the Championships, on the 5th and 6th of August. The quarterfinals will be played on the 10th and 11th of the same month, the semis on the 16th and 17th, and the grand final on the 21st

The women's Champions League will be held in Spain, in the Basque Country. San Mamés, home of Athletic Bilbao, and Anoeta, where Real Sociedad plays its games, will host the remaining matches of the competition. The UWCL quarterfinals will take place on the 21st and 22nd of August, while the semis will be on the 25th and 26th, and the final is scheduled for the 30th.

Due to the postponement of the end of the clubs' season, the Nations League also had to be re-scheduled. The first round of the tournament will take place between the 3rd and 8th of September. Then, between 10 and 14 October, another sequence of games. Finally, a third round will take place between 14 and 18 November.

Nations' knockout games should also have changed dates, especially due to the relocation of Euro 2020 to 2021. However, there is still no information on this

Source: GMB