CL question: is there an advantage to finishing 1st in your group?

[quantumleap]

Is there an advantage in the next round in finishing 1st in your group as opposed to finishing 2nd or even 3rd?

 

[MarkieMark+]

Well, first of all, if you finish 3rd you will be booted out of Champions League but you will get a shot at the UEFA Cup, so a seemingly meaningless game between Thun and Sparta Praha is important because the loser will be finished playing in Europe completely.

There is some advantage to winning your Group since the Group winners will play a 2nd place finisher in the knock-out round and, usually, the 2nd place finisher is a weaker team.

 

[HPark1]

Well you don't want to finish 3rd, you get dumped into the UEFA cup.

1st place teams face 2nd place teams so there is a slight advantage there, especially if you want to play Rangers! Also more importantly you get to play the 2nd leg at home.

 

[chriscol]

Yes it is:
1)1st place teams getting drawn against 2nd place teams for knock-out round
2) 1st place has home-game in 2nd leg, which is an advantage

3)
Expected outcome:
1st: Liverpool, Barca, Milan, Lyon, Inter, Villareal/Mu, Arsenal
2nd: Chelsea, Udinese, PSV, Real, Rangers, MU/Lille, Ajax

Besides Chelsea the second place teams are definetely easier to play IMO

BTW 3rd place is going to uefa-cup and is out of champions league

 

[quantumleap]

My mistake. For some reason I was thinking the 3rd place teams were eligible for a playoff. Perhaps I was thinking of the World Cup Qualifiers or something.

Thanks for the feedback.