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Apologies if this has come up recently and I've missed it but I was researching the Cup Winners Cup for a quiz earlier this week and it reminded me that UEFA were supposed to be bringing back a third tier European trophy. It's going to start from next summer and is the awfully named Europa Conference League. Apparently it was known as Europa League 2 as a working title and I think while still bad, that's better.

The workings of this thing make the Nations League look simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Europa_Conference_League

It's going to be a level below the Europa League but the EL is going to be smaller so it's not going to mean additional places in Europe. For the bottom half of Nations in UEFA's rankings, their cup winners and 2nd and 3rd placed teams will be going into this comp instead of the EL. Same with 3rd and 4th placed teams and cup winners from the middling Nations. For the top ranked Nations, only 1 team will go into this automatically (EFL Cup winners from England). But teams will drop into it from the early CL qualifiers and the EL qualifiers. Then after all the teams have gone through a group phase, the 3rd placed EL group phase teams will drop in for the knockout round. One nice feature is that the group winners will jump a round which the other comps should follow to give a bit of life to the group stages.

Apparently the point of this comp is to keep Europe alive longer for some of the smaller nations. Can't see it being a big TV draw though.

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1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

Apologies if this has come up recently and I've missed it but I was researching the Cup Winners Cup for a quiz earlier this week

Would be interested in seeing said quiz, if you could share it afterwards?

Also, have you read A Tournament Frozen In Time, which is about the CWC? A cracking read if you haven't and the same author has just had one published on the UEFA Cup as well.

I can't see that Europa Conference League lasting long. Like you said it needs to be a TV draw for it be anywhere near meaningful for the clubs involved (but football is all about trophies right?) and it surely won't be.

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3 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Apologies if this has come up recently and I've missed it but I was researching the Cup Winners Cup for a quiz earlier this week and it reminded me that UEFA were supposed to be bringing back a third tier European trophy. It's going to start from next summer and is the awfully named Europa Conference League. Apparently it was known as Europa League 2 as a working title and I think while still bad, that's better.

The workings of this thing make the Nations League look simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Europa_Conference_League

It's going to be a level below the Europa League but the EL is going to be smaller so it's not going to mean additional places in Europe. For the bottom half of Nations in UEFA's rankings, their cup winners and 2nd and 3rd placed teams will be going into this comp instead of the EL. Same with 3rd and 4th placed teams and cup winners from the middling Nations. For the top ranked Nations, only 1 team will go into this automatically (EFL Cup winners from England). But teams will drop into it from the early CL qualifiers and the EL qualifiers. Then after all the teams have gone through a group phase, the 3rd placed EL group phase teams will drop in for the knockout round. One nice feature is that the group winners will jump a round which the other comps should follow to give a bit of life to the group stages.

Apparently the point of this comp is to keep Europe alive longer for some of the smaller nations. Can't see it being a big TV draw though.

I can't wait. I live for these secondary continental tournaments and they cancelled the AFC Cup this year so I've been missing out. A tertiary tournament is definitely doomed to fail but while it's going on, it will also be way better than the Champions League especially.

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