Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyOcean_
so the lol-horrible teams from Andorra and San Marino play in the first Q for a shot at a place in the second Q? And then then second Q group plays for a spot in the third Q group?
Once you get to the third Q group, what is the difference between the third Q group and the playoff round? Do teams from the third Q try to get into the group marked as "playoff round"?
And then I'm assuming the "playoff round" group plays a playoff to see who advances to the group stage?
So basically, distill all those teams not in the group stage into the two best teams and those two get to join the group stage. Is that correct? And those two are determined by a playoff round, which some teams auto-qualify for and some teams qualify for based on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd qualifying rounds. Right?
Confusing, but it seems like a good system.
( First of all, there are only 2 pre-Q rounds. )
Take Italy as an example. Serie A is considered a top 3 league and has 4 CL spots - 3 go straight to the group stages and 1 has to weed through the second ( of 2 ) pre-qualifying rounds.
The starting position of a team is determined by the fifa coefficent of the league it plays in. Minor teams get placed in the first pre-qualy etc.
After the pre-qualification, the teams the have won the pre-Q and the high ranking teams get placed into 8 4-team groups, and have to play a home and away game against each other. The top 2 teams advance to the final 16. From there it's the standard knock-out stage.